War on Terror, FBI Entrapment, Domestic Terror, Israel and Palestine, NYT Fraud; Surveillance and Privacy, Whistleblowers, Tech Tracking, Your Rights Online; Net Neutrality, Comcast vs. Netflix; Haxx0red

War on Terror

• Supreme Court rejects hearing on military detention case—"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to President Barack Obama's administration by declining to hear a challenge to a law that allows the U.S. military to indefinitely detain people believed to have helped al Qaeda or the Taliban."
• US senators remove requirement for disclosure over drone strike victims
• Judge Dismisses Case Against Blackwater Defendant
• State Department Gives 87% of Afghan Funds to Only Five Recipients
• Nursing mom wins $75K settlement from TSA over airport incident

FBI

• Dzhokhar bombshell: FBI pressed Tamerlan to become informant
• At the Tribeca Fest: Two bold documentaries expose FBI spying and entrapment
• FBI knew of zero-day attack on websites, let hackers use it—"NY Times reports Sabu directed attacks with Plesk exploit after arrest."

Domestic Terror

• Why it's time to take domestic terrorism seriously
• Minnesota militia member facing jail despite failure to prove terror plot
• Reports Back Op-Ed Linking Vets to Hate Groups
• Concerns growing about militia members at Bundy ranch

Israel and Palestine

• Abbas denounces murder of Jews in Holocaust as 'most heinous crime in modern era'
• Israeli push for visa-free travel to US faces test—"A campaign to allow Israelis to enter the United States without a visa is gaining steam in Congress, but is still running into a brick wall with the Obama administration over the U.S. government's most elementary demand: that the Jewish state provide the same treatment at its borders to all Americans, even if they are Arab or Muslim."
• MKs pan Kerry for saying Israel could become 'apartheid'—"Anti-Defamation League also slams Washington's top diplomat, who warned of aftermath of talks' collapse." Kerry goes oooops [Politico] but gets his message across.

NYT Fraud

• 'New York Times' Admits It Agreed to 'Gag Orders' in Israel
• New York Times Admits It Pushed Fabricated Evidence about Iraq, Syria and Ukraine
• In 'A Fragile Trust,' Jayson Blair Tries to Give Answers—"Samantha Grant's documentary, 'A Fragile Trust,' comes a decade after the fraud scandal at The New York Times perpetrated by the reporter Jayson Blair." NYT

Surveillance and Privacy

• Surveillance court rejected Verizon challenge to NSA calls program—"A ruling said that another judge's criticism of the NSA's data collection had been considered and rejected." WaPo
• Telecom firm fails in first known FISA court surveillance challenge—"Unnamed company challenged metadata surveillance in court for the first time but lost, an unsealed order reveals."
• Where's the White House on Warrantless Email Snooping?
• Mathematicians at the NSA and GCHQ: Is it ethical to work for spy agencies?
• DC thinks it can silence a new Snowden, but the anti-leak hypocrisy is backfiring—"The Obama administration's latest secrecy guidelines would make Deep Throat spin in his grave. Good thing the floodgates are about to open on drones"

Whistleblowers

• Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Says Americans Have 'Lost the Republic'—"Daniel Ellsberg says that whistleblowers are the last people able to stand up to the federal government."
• The glamorous life of a whistleblower: Working a dead-end job for minimum wage—"Long before Snowden made headlines, Peter Van Buren shined light on the State Dept. Then the other shoe dropped..." Salon
• Hillary Clinton Mocks Snowden, Displays Her Ignorance When It Comes to Whistleblowers

Tech Tracking

• The White House Wants to Issue You an Online ID
• Verizon's mobile advertising will now use your desktop browsing habits
• Reddit Frontpage Ads Get Location Targeting

Your Rights Online

• Brazilian Congress passes Internet bill of rights
• Russia Internet sovereignty: Vladimir Putin is tightening his grip on the Internet
• Weibo: We can't censor our users enough to satisfy the Chinese government Salon

Net Neutrality

• If John Kerry Thinks the Internet Is a Fundamental Right, He Should Tell the FCC
• Congress screwed up net neutrality, not the FCC
• Obama Has Not Kept His Promise to Enforce Net Neutrality
• Internet service providers charging for premium access hold us all to ransom—"An ISP should give users the bits they ask for, as quickly as it can, and not deliberately slow down the data."
• Could new net neutrality rules fuel piracy?
• The Costs of Internet 'Fast Lanes'
• FCC Offers E-mail Address to Field Neutrality Complaint
• Turncoat? FCC says new Internet 'fast lane' rules won't kill net neutrality
• FCC chairman says he won't let ISPs snuff out the next Google or Amazon—"'I won't hesitate' to declare ISPs common carriers, Wheeler writes."

Comcast vs. Netflix

• Comcast Has About 76 Lobbyists Working Washington On The Time Warner Cable Merger. This is Why.
• Comcast sells 1.4 million customers to Charter ahead of Time Warner Cable merger
• Comcast accuses Netflix of lying as public feud escalates
• After Comcast, Netflix signs traffic deal with Verizon

Haxx0red

• U.S., UK advise avoiding Internet Explorer until bug fixed
• Zero-day Flash bug under active attack in Windows threatens OS X, Linux too—"Adobe issues emergency update for exploits targeting Syrian dissidents."
• After Heartbleed, NSA reveals some flaws are kept secret—"The White House explains the government's process when deciding whether to withhold knowledge of a security vulnerability -- 'There are legitimate pros and cons to the decision to disclose.'"
• Tech giants, chastened by Heartbleed, finally agree to fund OpenSSL —Thousands of sites and devices still vulnerable.
• Easter egg: DSL router patch merely hides backdoor instead of closing it—"Researcher finds secret 'knock' opens admin for some Linksys, Netgear routers."
• You've Got Hacked: AOL Confirms 'Significant Number' of Mail Users Hit

Net Neutrality Neutered, Broadband; Fourth Amendment Fouls; Bad Cops, Albuquerque; Police Brutality, K9 Killers, Militarization; Law and Disorder, Trial and Error, Recording, Prison, Innocence; Guns; Uncharitable

Net Neutrality Neutered

• FCC proposal would destroy net neutrality
• The FCC's "fast lane" rule is awful for the Internet—just ask the FCC—"Pay-for-play is fine for Web users? That's not what the FCC said in 2010."
• The FCC is about to axe-murder net neutrality. Don't get mad – get even—"The former cable and wireless industry lobbyist Tom Wheeler is re-writing rules in favor of the telecom giants – not you, me or the internet. Here's what you can do to stop him."
• Why Comcast Will Be Allowed to Buy Time Warner Cable and Kill Net Neutrality—"Five registered lobbyists at Comcast have spent time at the FCC. One of the last FCC Commissioners is one of them. One chart describes it all."
• How Comcast gets whatever it wants despite being one of America's most hated companies
• Sen. Sanders' statement—"Under this terribly misguided proposal, the Internet as we have come to know it would cease to exist and the average American would be the big loser. We must not let private corporations turn bigger and bigger profits by putting a price tag on the free flow of ideas."
• Goodbye, Net Neutrality; Hello, Net Discrimination
• The FCC's New Net Neutrality Proposal Is Even Worse Than You Think
• Netflix: The Case Against ISP Tolls—Should they switch over to P2P?
• Internet For the 1 Percent: New FCC Rules Strike Down Net Neutrality, Opening Fast Lanes for Fees
• Save the Internet campaign
• Blast from the Past: Obama pledges Net neutrality laws if elected president—US citizens should remind him of his promise.

Broadband

• Is Your Internet Connection Slower Than Advertised? WSJ
• AT&T's 'Expansion' of 1 Gbps to 100 Cities is a Big, Fat Bluff
• Comcast says its customer service does a great job 'way more than 99%' of the time
• Verizon Knows You're A Sucker: Takes Taxpayer Subsidies For Broadband, Doesn't Deliver, Lobbies To Drop Requirements

Fourth Amendment Fouls

• Supreme Court Gives Police New Power To Rely On Anonymous Tips
• Feds Beg Supreme Court to Let Them Search Phones Without a Warrant
• Low-level federal judges balking at law enforcement requests for electronic evidence—"Judges at the lowest levels of the federal judiciary are balking at sweeping requests by law enforcement officials for cellphone and other sensitive personal data, declaring the demands overly broad and at odds with basic constitutional rights." WaPo

Bad Cops

• New Orleans cops ignore federal oversight—"Advocates say a federally mandated overhaul of the New Orleans Police Department has yielded few results."
• Reform in Reverse—"How Mayor Ed Murray Unraveled Two Years of Police Reform in Only Two Months."
• D.C. Lieutenant Working During Fire Station Death Bypasses Discipline
• Monterey County deputies mistake Air Force captain for burglar in Carmel—"U.S. Air Force Capt. Nicolas Aquino was tackled and handcuffed at his own house in Carmel because a Monterey County sheriff's deputy thought he was a burglar. Now, Aquino is being charged with resisting arrest and obstructing a peace officer."
• Pakistani judge dismisses charges against 9-month-old accused of attempted murder

Albuquerque

• Albuquerque: 3 Police Oversight Commission members quit—"Letter: 'I cannot continue to pretend or deceive the members of our community.'"
• Police body cameras didn't provide accountability in New Mexico
• Albuquerque police officer fatally shoots woman—"A 19-year-old woman suspected of stealing a truck was shot and killed during a chase with Albuquerque police, making her the third person in five weeks to be killed by officers and the first since the department was put under federal orders to reduce the use of deadly force and reform a culture of abuse and aggression."

Police Brutatlity

• #myNYPD Backfires As Twitter Users Share Photos of Police Brutality
• Bull Shoals police chief arrested in federal excessive-force case
• Federal jury acquits state trooper of stomping

K9 Killers

• Dog dies after police prevent neighbor from giving aid after it was hit by a car—"We asked Denver Police to view the video but they declined."
• Halifax cop shoots dog while conducting surveillance on home
• Owners ask for answers after Austin Police officers shoot and kill dog

Militarization

• The United States of SWAT?—"Military-style units from government agencies are wreaking havoc on non-violent citizens."
• Congratulations! Your tiny town has an MRAP and is ready for war—"Here at The Watch, we're looking for the smallest town in America to acquire an MRAP, or Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored personnel vehicle." WaPo
• Militarized police may be in a town near you

Law and Disorder

• Hate crime charge in mob attack on Detroit motorist
• Couple strip searched over $3 earrings at southeast Houston beauty supply
• Ohio man must pay $489,000 for fake distress report: court
• Driver of SUV that hit cyclists suing dead teen's family—'Her enjoyment of life has been and will be lessened,' suit claims." Sociopath?

Trial and Error

• Report: NYC court stenographer who typed 'gibberish' may jeopardize up to 30 convictions
• FBI rescues Wake Forest man; abduction related to daughter's work as prosecutor, investigators say
• Ohio judge orders man to hold 'I AM A BULLY!' sign WaPo
• Families of autistic kids sue Disney parks over policy on lines—"Disney changed the policy after media reports of abuse of guest assistance cards, such as visitors hiring disabled people to help them skip lines." Go sue those assholes first.
• Majority of complaints about Sriracha factory came from 4 households

Recording

• Rare 'Perry Mason' moment in court wins dismissal for defendant, desk duty for 5 police officers—"A seemingly routine suppression hearing in a suburban Chicago courthouse last month took an unexpected dramatic turn when video from a police car was introduced that disproved the testimony of five police officers."
• Detroit police unveil new cameras to be worn by officers and newest batch of scout cars
• Video shows Texas cop kicking, tripping high school soccer fans
• China: Rioting crowd severely beats 5 chengguan for killing civilian

Prison

• Texas prisons violate international human rights standards, report says—"Extreme temperatures in state-run facilities has caused the deaths of at least 14 inmates since 2007, according to human rights group."
• State pays $120,000 to settle prison claims
• Protesters want Gates Foundation to stop investing in prison operator
• Mike Anderson Sues MO Department of Corrections, Asks for Immediate Release—Put in jail after 13 years due to a 'clerical error.'

Innocence

• Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter dead at 76—"Former professional boxer became an advocate for the wrongly convicted."
• DA's fight against innocence claim may have left dangerous gunman on street
• The U.S. Abuses Its Wrongfully Convicted in More Ways Than One
• Life interrupted: Man exonerated in murder struggles to start fresh after 24 years behind bars
• Exonerated Illinois man could seek review of conviction in 1974 Shaker Square-area murder

Guns

• NJ gives driver 5 years on gun charge: targeted because he had Texas plates
• Despite deadline, protesters 'will not comply' with SAFE Act
• Republicans Say No to CDC Gun Violence Research—"Giving the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention money for gun violence research is a 'request to fund propaganda,' a Georgia congressman says."

Uncharitable

• Comic Relief money invested in arms and tobacco shares
• NY report: Telemarketers kept most charity donations
• Only 8 percent of NFL pink apparel sales go toward cancer research: report
• Report: Red Sox May Be Sued By Charitable Foundation Over Use Of 'B Strong' Logo

Comcast Merger, Broadband and Wireless; Copyfight and Piracy; Patent Trolls; Digital Life, Tech Death; CIA Senate Spying; Snowden, SXSW, Surveillance and Privacy, Media and Whistleblowers, Cybersecurity

Comcast Merger

• Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal to face antitrust probe
• Time Warner Cable Deal Sets Comcast's D.C. Lobbying Machine in Motion
• Comcast spreads cash wide on Capitol Hill Politico
• Top Official Can't Rule on Cable Merger—"The Justice Department official, William Baer, represented NBCUniversal during its takeover by Comcast and is therefore forbidden from considering the merger." NYT
• Our Rights Shouldn't Come with an Expiration Date

Broadband and Wireless

• In Tennessee, four bills seek to reverse restrictions on public broadband—"Telco lobby angry about prospect of facing competition."
• Frustrated Cities Take High-Speed Internet Into Their Own Hands
• This is why Verizon gets away with charging customers more money
• Our $7 Billion Emergency LTE Network Appears Stuck In Corrupt, Bureaucratic Purgatory
• Ultra-fast 5G broadband to download a film in less than ONE SECOND
• True Detective Finale Crashes HBO GO—Took them 3.5 hours to come back online.
• Why a Netflix Price Increase Is Inevitable

Copyfight and Piracy

• US Solicitor General's Office, Run By Former Top MPAA Lawyer, Shockingly Sides With Broadcasters Over Aereo
• The world's largest photo service just made its pictures free to use—"Getty Images is betting their business on embeddable photos."
• 'Candy' Trademark Bully King Gets Trolled In Exquisite Fashion By 'Trademarkville'
• Popcorn Time Is So Good at Movie Piracy, It's Scary
• Dutch Supreme Court Agrees To Let Rights Group Collect Back 'You Must Be A Pirate' Taxes On Mp3 Players And Hard Drives

Patent Trolls

• Stalking trolls—"Intellectual property: After being blamed for stymying innovation in America, vague and overly broad patents on software and business processes could get the chop."
• Congress gets out club for patent 'trolls'
• Nintendo and HTC score a win against patent trolls
• German court dismisses $2 billion patent troll claim against Apple
• EFF goes to court, quashes patent troll's attempt to grab donor names—"Podcasting patent troll sought 1,300 EFF donor names; it's getting zero."

Digital Life

• 15 Theses About the Digital Future
• Study: 11% of Americans Think HTML Is an STD
• Keurig Insists Coffee DRM Brings 'Interactive-Enabled Benefits' And Is For Your Own Safety—Keep bullshitting.
• Yahoo will block Google and Facebook accounts from accessing its services
• Mozilla anger over Dell Firefox fee—Charging users to install the free browser.

Tech Death

• History's 15 Worst Named Tech Products
• RadioShack closing 1,100 stores after dismal holidays
• How QuarkXPress became a mere afterthought in publishing—"In the early '90s, Quark boasted 95% market share. In '99, InDesign arrived..."

CIA Senate Spying

• Feinstein: CIA searched Intelligence Committee computers—"Head of intelligence panel said agency appears to have violated Constitution and federal laws." What's Dianne complaining about? Isn't that what she's enabling the NSA to do anyway on ordinary citizens? WaPo
• Snowden accuses Senate intelligence chair of hypocrisy over CIA disclosures—"NSA whistleblower accuses Dianne Feinstein of double standards, pointing out her lack of concern about widespread surveillance of ordinary citizens."
• How CIA snooped on Senate Intel Committee's files—"It's easy to search someone's network when you hired the IT department."
• Why Does Congress Lack the Backbone to Oversee the CIA?—"The spy agency should pay a price for its intransigence. But not enough legislators are willing to defend the oversight role of their colleagues."
• Behind Clash Between C.I.A. and Congress, a Secret Report on Interrogations—"A dispute over a classified C.I.A. report has led to a bitter fight between the agency and the Senate Intelligence Committee, with each side accusing the other of spying on it." NYT
• CIA: We Only Spied On Senate Intelligence Committee Because They Took Classified Documents That Prove We're Liars
• The CIA has brought darkness to America by fighting in the shadows—"After 9/11 the agency was given free rein to break the rules but when allowed to play dirty abroad, it's difficult to stop at home."

Snowden

• Snowden: I raised NSA concerns internally over 10 times before going rogue WaPo
• Snowden Gives Testimony To European Parliament Inquiry Into Mass Surveillance, Asks For EU Asylum
• Snowden has shown the 'huge disparity of surveillance and power', says Gellman—"Government needs reminding that they work for us, says Pulitzer-winning reporter Barton Gellman, who describes Edward Snowden as ending an era of indifference to surveillance."
• Edward Snowden is Becoming the Face of Leadership in America—"He may not even be allowed back on American soil, but Edward Snowden is becoming a pioneer for an America that is finally beginning to value information and transparency over pride and fear."
• Weirdest Snowden leak yet: The NSA has an advice columnist—"'Ask Zelda' column was a favorite among staffers."

SXSW

• Kill the Snowden interview, congressman tells SXSW—"Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo wants organizers of South by Southwest Interactive to back out of their scheduled video conference interview of Edward Snowden." Fat chance.
• Edward Snowden speaks at SXSW, calls for public oversight of U.S. spy programs—And of Congress itself.
• Edward Snowden: 'They're setting fire to the future of the Internet' WaPo

Surveillance and Privacy

• Court Rejects NSA Bid to Hold Phone Data Longer—"A federal surveillance court has rejected the Obama administration's bid to hold onto millions of phone records beyond the current five-year limit."
• Julian Assange: 'We're heading towards a dystopian surveillance society'—"Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange joins Alex Wagner to discuss society 'heading towards surveillance totalitarianism,' his exile, censorship and why Edward Snowden 'has become a symbol.'"
• Digital surveillance: How you're being tracked every day
• Disney Bets $1 Billion on Technology to Track Theme-Park Visitors
• Judge orders Internet commenter's name revealed

Media and Whistleblowers

• Outgoing NSA chief hints at 'media leaks legislation' Politico
• The Guardian's Alan Rusbridger: 'It's Essential to Be Paranoid' NYT
• I got 30 months in prison. Why does Leon Panetta get a pass?—"The Espionage Act should be rewritten to deal with issues of intent and motive, and it should be enforced equally."

Cybersecurity

• Embarrassing stories shed light on U.S. officials' technological ignorance—"One U.S. official asked what an ISP is in preparation for cybersecurity negotiations with China."
• Why Your Mobile Device Isn't As Secure As You Think
• Stop Glorifying Hackers—"I would not learn for nine months that within my short, oblivious interval of defenselessness Guccifer had managed to capture a passwords list I had Gmailed to myself at the office." Maybe she should stop doing stuff like that in the first place.
• HTTPS can't be trusted to obscure private online activity
• Apple security rules leave inherited iPad useless, say sons—Sound like a necessary CYA on Apple's part.

Net Neutrality, Netflix, Speed Bumps, Cable and Broadband, Lobby Folly; TPP, Copyfight; Online News; eBooks, Publishing, Wikipedia; Sochi

Net Neutrality

• FCC to rewrite net neutrality rules, won’t appeal court ruling WaPo
• White House: Without Net Neutrality "the Internet could turn into a high-priced private toll road"
• Republicans Will Try to Kill New Net-Neutrality Rules—"A showdown looms as the FCC announces bid to revive regulations recently struck down in federal court."

Netflix

• Verizon seeks payment for carrying Netflix traffic, WSJ reports—"Feud between ISPs, Netflix, and Internet bandwidth providers continues."
• Netflix slow on Verizon or Comcast? A VPN might speed up that video—"ISPs could throttle traffic if they want—but Netflix can play dirty tricks too."
• Netflix speeds lag for Verizon users amid dispute
• Netflix to Pay Comcast for Smoother Streaming
• Is Netflix Slowing Down? Good Luck Finding Out Why.—"The FCC wants to force ISPs to show whether delays are due to unavoidable congestion or created to extract fees from content providers."

Speed Bumps

• Here is why your Internet is so pathetic and so expensive WaPo
• Americans Are Getting Gouged Over LTE Data Speeds And Costs
• America's fastest mobile networks are left in the dust by Brazil, Russia, and Mexico—"In a study of 16 countries, the average US download speed in 2013, at 6.5 Mbps (Megabits per second), was faster only than the Philippines, and then just barely."
• Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly WSJ
• Surprise: Giving ISPs everything they want hasn't created a broadband paradise

Cable and Broadband

• Comcast filings with regulators expected at end of March
• Time Warner Cable Raises Rates (Again), Adds 'Broadcast TV' Fee
• This is what happens when Time Warner Cable is forced to compete
• Google Fiber chooses nine metro areas for possible expansion
• The Hunt For Bright House Fiber In Florida—"We've talked for years about how a large number of companies (from Time Warner Cable to Qwest) that can't or won't pay for fiber to the home do the next best thing -- lie to customers and pretend that core network fiber is the same as last mile fiber. [...] Stop The Cap directs our attention that Bright House Networks is latest ISP to employ this tactic...."

Lobby Folly

• Comcast's Web of Lobbying and Philanthropy—"The company is beginning a carefully orchestrated campaign, seeking support from members of Congress, state officials and leaders of nonprofit and minority-led groups." NYT
• "It's dead": Kansas municipal Internet ban was "stabbed, shot, and hanged"—"Cable lobby rebuffed in attempt to ban public broadband networks." Dead for now, anyway,
• The Cable Guys: Curious why a bill in Topeka might limit cable competition? Just follow the lobbying money

TPP

• Obama Admin's TPP Trade Officials Received Hefty Bonuses From Big Banks
• TPP conclusion rests on Japan-U.S. tariff issue
• Say no to corporate power grabs - reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Copyfight

• Canadian Court Slaps Restrictions on Copyright Trolling
• RapidShare Stops Washington Lobbying Efforts and Regains Pirate Stamp
• Aereo loses copyright fight, gets banned in 6 states—"Judges in New York and Utah disagree, as case heads to Supreme Court."
• Why YouTube's Automated Copyright Takedown System Hurts Artists
• The Color Run Sues College Photographer After He Asks for Compensation for Image—After much back-and-forth, this issue has been resolved: "We have been able to reach a joint agreement, which meets the needs of maxxsphotography.com and The Color Run."

Online News

• Glenn Greenwald, Nate Silver, Ezra Klein, Bill Keller, and the New Public-Interest Journalism
• The New York Times' Most Popular Story of 2013 Was Not an Article
• Ezra Klein Is Joining Vox Media as Web Journalism Asserts Itself—And he's gonna have familiar company. NYT
• Against 'Long-Form Journalism'—"When it comes to great magazine writing, what’s in a name?" When is 'long-form' bad form [NYT] ?
• How breaking news is breaking us: The rush to report Philip Seymour Hoffman's death—"News of a celebrity's death can now spread across Twitter before the family's informed. That doesn't mean it should." Salon

eBooks

• Adobe: We Didn't Mean to Use DRM to Break Your eBook Readers
• Sony Reader eBook store shutting down in US, Canada
• Overdrive Going DRM-Free with Audiobooks
• Apple, U.S. clash in court over e-books antitrust monitor—Apple loses another battle.
• Barnes & Noble Fired Its Nook Hardware Engineering Staff

Publishing

• Big in Japan—"Here, I was just another writer. Over there, I was a star." NYT
• People-Powered Publishing Is Changing All the Rules
• George Packer: Is Amazon Bad for Books?—""To many book professionals, Amazon is a ruthless predator; recently, the company has even started publishing books. A monopoly is dangerous because it concentrates so much economic power, but in the book business the prospect is especially worrisome: it would give Amazon more control over the exchange of ideas than any company in U.S. history."

Wikipedia

• Wikimedia Foundation employee ousted over paid editing
• New York Times Has Been Editing Reporters' Wikipedia Pages For Years
• Wikipedia mounts courtroom defense for editor sued by politician—"Wikimedia lawyer: Greek pol's €200,000 lawsuit is 'an assault on our users.'"
• Police Board of Finland Attacks Wikipedia's Fundraising Campaign
• This machine kills trolls—"How Wikipedia’s robots and cyborgs snuff out vandalism."

Sochi

• Sochi closing ceremony: Games end with flourish as protest fears melt away—"Rush of medals for host nation helps buoy mood on shores of Black Sea after most expensive Games in history." With a dash of self-deprecating humor.
• Sochi Olympics provide chilling glimpses of everyday life for Russians—"The Games provided 'war stories' for many journalists, but also brought insight into everyday life for those left behind."
• Jimmy Kimmel Reveals "Epic #SochiFail: Wolf in My Hall" Prank

Comcast Merger, Broadband, Netflix; TPP, Copyfight, Pandora vs. ASCAP; Flappy Bird, Gaming; Windows Crash; Law and Disorder

Comcast Merger

• Comcast buys rival Time Warner Cable for $45bn
• Comcast Gives $854K to Subcommittee With Jurisdiction Over FCC
• Sen. Chuck Schumer recuses himself from Comcast-Time Warner deal—Huge conflict-of-interest with him praising the deal previously.
• Comcast: No promise that prices "will go down or even increase less rapidly"—"Former FCC commissioner urges defeat of "anti-consumer" Comcast/TWC merger."
• Comcast's Time Warner Deal Is Bad for America
• The Real Problem with the Comcast-Time Warner Merger
• Comcast monopoly: One Cable Company to Rule Them All?
• Forget TV, It's Internet Access at Stake in the Comcast Deal

Broadband

• ISP lobby has already won limits on public broadband in 20 states—"Bills limiting municipal ISPs in Kansas and Utah continue noble tradition.."
• Data Caps Are The Devil For Residents Of Rural Alaskan Towns; Are They In Our Future?
• Time Warner Cable still in denial, says users might not want faster data speeds
• How ISPs are working to keep you stuck with their slow service
• This is what a competitive broadband market looks like
• Google working on 10 gigabit Internet speeds
• Many Broadband ISP Consumers Suffer in Silence Rather than Complain

Netflix

• Netflix plan for cable boxes threatened by Comcast/Time Warner merger—"Supporting Netflix would 'cannibalize their business.'"
• Netflix To Deploy GPU-Powered Neural Networks For Deep Learning In Movie Recommendations
• Infographic: Netflix vs. Blockbuster

TPP

• Amid Growing Calls To Release TPP Text, NZ Says Transparency Would 'Destroy' Agreement, While USTR Won't Even Talk If Journalists Are Present
• Obama Pushes TPP Negotiations Despite Mounting Opposition at Home and Abroad
• Obama Trade Deals Are in Trouble, and They Deserve to Be

Copyfight

• Scary UFC Copyright Propaganda Matters to Everyone
• Why It's Getting Harder to Sue Illegal Movie Downloaders—"Some federal judges are becoming skeptical of the methods copyright holders use to identify culprits."
• Australian Government Signals Online Piracy Crackdown

Pandora vs. ASCAP

• Pandora Suit May Upend Century-Old Royalty Plan—"Pandora is squaring off against Ascap in a closely watched trial over royalty payments determined by a system developed long before digital streams and smartphone apps." NYT
• Surprise: ASCAP and Music Labels Colluded To Screw Pandora
• ASCAP, Pandora await verdict in court battle over digital music rights

Flappy Bird

• 28 Days of Fame: The Strange, True Story of 'Flappy Bird'
• Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Says App 'Gone Forever' Because It Was 'An Addictive Product'
• Flap no more: Google, Apple rejecting flappy-branded games—"Apparently they're just as sick of Flappy Bird as we are."
• Why Indie Developers Go Insane
• You can't actually sell your Flappy Bird phone on eBay

Gaming

• TotalBiscuit Fights Against Total Boneheads—FUN Creators seem to be out of their frickin' minds.
• Plants vs Zombies drops in-app fee
• 'CandySwipe', a Game Released Two Years Before 'Candy Crush', is the Latest Victim of the King.com Candy Trademark "Saga"
• Gabe Newell Speaks On Recent VAC Controversy, Asks For Trust—Valve accused of spying on users under guise of anti-cheating measures.
• Korea bans kids from late night gaming, they don't listen

Windows Crash

• What the Heck is Happening to Windows?—Tough love from Thurrott.
• Windows 8 UX designer on Metro: "It is the antithesis of a power user"
• After 15 months, Windows 8 has sold 100 million fewer copies than Windows 7 did
• Windows 7 on business PCs gets an extension—PC consumer sales end October 31.
• Hate Windows 8? 3 ways to downgrade to Windows 7
• Irish Govt signs €3.3m deal with Microsoft to fix Windows XP security issues
• Why do People Still Use Windows XP

Law and Disorder

• With Porn Filters Going Oh So Well, UK Roars Ahead In Expanding Them To Include 'Extremist' Content
• Hyperlinking is Not Copyright Infringement, EU Court Rules—"However, the ruling also makes it clear that while publishing a link to freely available content does not amount to infringement, there are circumstances where that would not be the case."
• Frenchman Fined For 'Theft' And 'Fraudulent Retention' For Finding Health Docs Via A Google Search
• The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life—"A young man's violent threat on Facebook lands him in jail, and limbo."
• Google reaches antitrust deal with EU—"The Internet search giant dodges $5 billion in fines with pledge to display rivals' search results.

Take-nology; Net Neutrality, Netflix, Broadband; Patent Trolls, Copyfight; Haxx0red; Uber; Charrrge; Games

Take-nology

• How a Few Monster Tech Firms are Taking Over Everything from Media to Space Travel and What it Means for the Rest of Us—"The monster tech firms are stifling competition and consolidating their power while they expand into new markets. Like the old industrial magnates, they want to control everything."
• Tech fears shadow campaign to seize global control of Internet
• Tim Berners-Lee: we need to re-decentralise the web

Net Neutrality

• Disruptions: Paying to Travel in the Internet's Fast Lanes—"Has the Internet become so fundamental to our lives that it is, in essence, a utility that should be subject to regulation?" NYT
• Obama: I Care Deeply About Net Neutrality
• U.S. Democrats seek to restore net neutrality
• EFF: Why the FCC Can't Actually Save Net Neutrality
• AT&T Has Invented A Way To Charge You Twice For The Same Internet

Netflix

• Netflix warns it will provoke customer protest if ISPs violate net neutrality principles
• Verizon denies reports of Netflix throttling following net neutrality's death—Will they be able to deny the numbers?
• Netflix speed index shows further decline in Verizon quality
• Why Carriers Won't Win War On Netflix
• Netflix to spend $3bn on TV and film content in 2014—"On-demand streaming site ended 2013 with net profits of $112m despite rise in cost of international rights and commissioning."
• How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood—"To understand how people look for movies, the video service created 76,897 micro-genres. We took the genre descriptions, broke them down to their key words, … and built our own new-genre generator."
• Netflix's Gain Is HBO's Loss in Subscriber Wars
• Here's how Netflix is thinking of changing subscription prices

Broadband

• Kansas: Hearings on community broadband services bill postponed—Cable companies blame "misinformation" for bill's derailment.
• Google can leverage municipalities to bring fiber to the masses—"One small ISP in Kansas thinks city-funded fiber would give consumers choice."
• Utah bill would stop regional fiber networks from expanding—"Bill seen as gift to incumbent ISPs who are threatened by UTOPIA fiber network."
• Mozilla Is Shelling Out $300K to Help Develop Super-Fast Internet
• How the U.S. can avoid becoming a 'third-world country' in broadband

Patent Trolls

• Wi-Fi "patent troll" will only get 3.2 cents per router from Cisco—3.2 cents too much.
• Apple complains of 'patent trolls'—"The tech giant says it has faced nearly 100 patent suits in the last three years from firms demanding royalties."
• The ultimate patent troll is going to trial against Google and Motorola

Copyfight

• Antivirus Software Starts Blocking Pirate Websites
• One Year Later, Unlocking Your Phone Is Still A Crime
• What happens with digital rights management in the real world?—"DRM is one of the most salient, and least understood, facts about technology in the contemporary world."

Haxx0red

• Sochi hack report 'fraudulent,' security researcher charges—What really happened?
• Hackers can use Snapchat to disable iPhones, researcher says
• Retailers must guard against craftier hacks, senators say
• Hackers access 800,000 Orange customers' data
• New Google Chrome feature warns users when browser has been hijacked
• Senate cybersecurity report finds agencies often fail to take basic preventive measures WaPo
• PNG Image Metadata Found Leveraging iFrame Injections

Uber

• Uber and Its Enemies—"How taxi cartels resort to desperate measures to kill innovation and save their crumbling industry."
• Smartphone ride-share apps Uber, Lyft, facing strict regulation
• Chicago Cabbies Sue Over Unregulated Uber, Lyft Services
• Council Of State Suspends 15-Minute Law Against Uber, LeCab And Others In France
• Black Car Competitor Accuses Uber Of DDoS-Style Attack; Uber Admits Tactics Are "Too Aggressive"—There's more to this story.
• Family sues Uber for wrongful death of their 6-year-old daughter
• Should Uber Be Responsible For Driver Recklessness?

Charrrge

• 'Special Excess': The Secret Broadband, Internet, Cable, Wireless and Phone Networks
• HP to begin charging for firmware updates and service packs for servers
• Free alternatives to LogMeIn

Games

• Dungeon Keeper review: 1/10—And deservedly so. This is "free-to-play" gone amuck, all thanks to EA and their underhanded actions. It seems, however, some players aren't aware they're being scammed and that some reviews never see the light of day.
• Flappy Bird Stops Flapping—But Why?
• Valve win German court battle: resale of Steam games still a no-no
• League of Legends developer promises it's not a patent troll—"Riot Games explains its patents on spectator mode features and promises not to use them offensively."
• Batman: Arkham Origins has no plans to fix several game breaking bugs
• Blizzard to fund competitive gaming at the college level
• An unpaid bill leads to costly video game battle

Cable Bundling; Netflix; Trouble with Telcos; Net Neutrality; Broadband; Google Fiber

Cable Bundling

• Keep dreaming, cord cutters: Time Warner chief says no streaming-only option for HBO GO
• Top cable lobbyist: No 'a la carte' needed, cable companies already provide 'unparalleled choice'
• ABC Declares War on Cord Cutters with Live TV App — Delayed Streaming to Follow
• Time Warner Cable eyes Aereo-like service as way to ditch expensive bundles
• John McCain Introduces Cable A La Carte Legislation To Stop Bundling & Broadcasters Moving To Pay TV

Netflix

• Netflix, Reed Hastings Survive Missteps to Join Silicon Valley's Elite
• Netflix's Ted Sarandos talks Arrested Development, 4K and reviving old shows—"[W]hen we launch in a territory the Bittorrent traffic drops as the Netflix traffic grows." Amazing how offering a product at an affordable rate works.
• AOL vs. Netflix: The Entire Internet In One Simple Chart
• Warner Bros., MGM, Universal Collectively Pull Nearly 2,000 Films From Netflix To Further Fragment The Online Movie Market—"You may recall that Warner recently launched this archive, which is an incredibly overpriced and ridiculously limited offering."
• Netflix Canada Could Be Bundled With Cable TV; Competition Could Soon Be On The Scene

Trouble with Telcos

• Telecoms' monopoly holding back U.S. innovation—"A law school professor is on a permanent campaign to argue that the telecom and cable industry has been overtaken by monopolists who resist innovation and overcharge consumers." NYT
• New FCC chairman is "former lobbyist for cable and wireless industries"
• Outgoing FCC chair says Verizon, AT&T duopoly would be a 'very bad thing'
• America's Carriers Are Terrible. It's Probably Your Fault.
• Dumb Attorney General Gets T-Mobile Plans Wrong

Net Neutrality

• A Ruling Could Support F.C.C.'s Net Neutrality Defense
• AT&T Continues To Mock The Concept Of Net Neutrality; This Time With Google Hangouts Block—They said sometime later that they will roll out the service.
• Deutsche Telekom Dumps Net Neutrality; Will Limit Bandwidth For Competing Video & Voice Products

Broadband

• American ISPs are now hated even more than airlines—This just gives Google Fiber a better chance of succeeding.
• US moves to free up spectrum for passengers
• Legislation would provide subsidies for low-income broadband access
• Japanese provider launches 'world's fastest home broadband'—"So-net - the Sony-backed provider - is now offering Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband deals with headline speeds of 2Gb."
• Vermont telephone company offering $35-per-month gigabit internet service

Google Fiber

• The Genius Of Google Fiber
• That Was Fast: Google Fiber Puts More Pressure on the Cable Guys
• The force of Fiber: Google Fiber is pressuring rivals to up their game
• Google Fiber spreads again, confirmed for Gladstone, MO
• Time Warner Cable in Austin sees new Google Fiber, raises with free Wi-Fi?—"Austin tech journo says TWC offer is laughable: 'It won't even make me pause.'"
• CenturyLink Whines About Google Fiber in Utah—"Uses sleazy tactics for a decade, cries about fairness."
• Good news for Google Fiber: Broadcast TV audiences are cratering faster than ever

Happy St. Patrick's Day; Surveillance and Privacy; Copyfight; Broadband, Telcos; Web; SimShitties

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Surveillance and Privacy

• Federal Judge Finds National Security Letters Unconstitutional, Bans Them
• Sunshine Week: EFF Takes Fight Against Secret Surveillance Law to Federal Court
• Opinion: The Internet is a surveillance state
• Texas proposes one of nation's "most sweeping" mobile privacy laws
• UK: Protester wins surveillance database fight—"John Catt, who has no criminal record, wins legal action to have records deleted from police database of suspected extremist."

Copyfight

• Panicked porn troll Prenda Law now dismissing pending lawsuits
• Appeals court rejects record label's effort to neuter DMCA safe harbor—"Ninth Circuit ruling gives user-generated content sites more breathing room."
• Publishers Have A New Strategy For Neutralizing Open Access -- And It's Working

Broadband

• Time Warner Cable says there's no consumer demand for gigabit internet
• The ISP Speed Index from Netflix
• Bill That Would Have Banned Public Broadband In Georgia Has Failed
• China Shames U.S. With Plan to Speed 'Last Mile' Internet
• Cheap, Ultrafast Broadband? Hong Kong Has It NYT

Telcos

• How AT&T Is Planning to Rob Americans of an Open Public Telco Network
• Virginia ISP Locks Customers Into 25-75 Year Contracts; Sues Everybody When Monopoly Threatened
• How to stop YouTube sucking (Windows guide)

Web

• The Court of Public Opinion Is About Mob Justice and Reputation as Revenge
• How Twitter won the social media battle for journalism
• Any Two Pages on the Web Are Connected By 19 Clicks or Less
• Tumblr Is Not What You Think
• Free State govt: We paid R40m for website—That's US$4.4 million for a Wordpress site with a $40 theme.

SimShitties

• SimCity Creators Say They’re Fixing The Game’s Road Traffic Weirdness
• SimCity Hack Lets Users Destroy Anyone's Online City Thanks To Always-On DRM
• SimCity Modder Tells Us Offline Regional Play Easily Done
• EA Censors SimCity Support Number To Cutback On Refund Requests
• The new Sim City: an economist's take—More of satire on the housing sector.
• SimCity Boss's "Straight Answers" Seem Pretty Wiggly
• SimCity review: One week later, time doesn’t heal all wounds

Oscars, Behind the Scenes, Movies; Television; Entertainment and Culture; Literature; Comics

Oscars

• Affleck, "Argo" and the Oscars: Why wasn't he nominated?
• $1.99 iPhone app saved Oscars film
• Oscar loves a white savior—"If a movie features white people rescuing people of color from their plight, odds are high an Oscar will follow." Salon
• Nate Silver: Oscar Predictions, Election-Style NYT
• For your consideration: Anne Hathaway

Behind the Scenes

• Soul Men: The Making of The Blues Brothers—"The pitch was simple: 'John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Blues Brothers, how about it?' But the film The Blues Brothers became a nightmare for Universal Pictures, wildly off schedule and over budget, its fate hanging on the amount of cocaine Belushi consumed."
• Script Reveals the Lost Ending of The Shining
• Kubrick: "I don't know how to write this letter."
• Alfred Hitchcock reveals Psycho was meant to be a comedy in newly-unearthed interview
• Sundance 2013: How did a newbie make an unapproved film in Disney parks?
• How Digital Filmmakers Produced a Gorgeous Sci-Fi Movie on a Kickstarter Budget
• The 25 Greatest Unscripted Scenes in Films

Movies

• Film Crit Hulk Smash: HULK VS. TOM HOOPER AND ART OF CINEMATIC AFFECTATION
• "I Do and I Don't": Hollywood's marriage problem—"A film historian asks why the movies are so bad at depicting one of life's most important relationships." Salon
• Moviebarcode

Television

• 'Game of Thrones' Creator Extends Deal With HBO
• Netflix's House of Cards Offers an Uneven But Promising Look at TV's Future
• "I love Lucy, and she loves me"
• DuckTales invented a new animated wonderland—that quickly disappeared
• Pizza of Destiny: Cranston's Greatest Shot

Entertainment and Culture

• Is Louis C.K. Our Gogol?—"It isn't hard to imagine Louis C.K. reading 'Dead Souls' and underlining Gogol's summary of miserable Plyushkin, a stingy, spitting, munching, wealthy, toothless hoarder who does nothing to conceal the snuff poking out of his nostrils"
• Fresh proof found for the other, 'original' 'Mona Lisa'
• Lenny Kravitz crashes the VOP Choir in New Orleans for "Fly Away"

Literature

• Happy Two-Hundredth Birthday, "Pride and Prejudice"
• 100 Best First Lines from Novels
• A Letter From The New Yorker

Comics

• 'Superman' writer Orson Scott Card protest is un-American, says NOM—DC's lapping up the publicity over hiring this out-and-proud homophobe.
• Dr Fredric Wertham Lied And Lied And Lied About Comics
• Rob Liefeld's Prophet and Glory, revamped—Comic book fans' favorite punching bag's knock out.

Hacking; Your Rights Online; Censorship; Free Speech; Copyfight; Tech Cases; Bandwidth; Netflix

Hacking

• Critical Java vulnerability made possible by earlier incomplete patch--"Memo to Oracle: Security bugs are like mushrooms. Don't stop picking too early." This issue is being "massively exploited" so turn off Java now.
• Massive bank cyberattack planned
• Internet Explorer vulnerability lets hackers track your mouse movements

Your Rights Online

• Why the UN's push to control the Internet isn't over
• Cyberlaw Predictions: International Pressure on Internet Governance
• 'The Internet is threatened': Google's chief internet evangelist Vint Cerf
• Senator Wyden lays out "digital freedom" agenda--"The 'Senator from the Internet' preaches to the choir at CES."
• The new politics of the internet: Everything is connected--"Can internet activism turn into a real political movement?"

Censorship

• France's censorship demands to Twitter are more dangerous than 'hate speech'
• Google concedes defeat in China censorship battle--"US company quietly drops warning message that Chinese users saw when searching for politically sensitive phrases."
• A Chinese Web censor snaps, goes on public rant
• Judge can't order Yelp user to edit negative review
• CBS blocks CNet praise for legal foe Dish--"One day after CNET named the DISH Hopper to an awards shortlist, the tech blog's parent company CBS stepped in and nixed the accolade because of a legal battle."

Free Speech

• Nicola Roxon's discrimination laws draw flak from media--"The nation's media giants have slammed Labor's plans to make it unlawful to offend or insult people under the proposed overhaul of discrimination law, warning it could encourage audiences to be unnecessarily thin-skinned and outlets to restrict contentious or complex material." The Australian
• Nick Kristof live-tweets his Bahrain visa crisis--They didn't want him to report what's been happening inside the country.
• Remy Couture found not guilty of corrupting morals

Copyfight

• Republican staffer fired for copyright memo finally speaks --He's standing behind his work.
• The Guardian: Why the entertainment industry's release strategy creates piracy--Dotcom sums up succinctly.
• Dotcom files against US government, accuses FBI of dodgy dealing
• "Buffy vs Edward" remix unfairly removed by Lionsgate--Purported model of fair use gets DMCA'd to death.
• Verizon's "Six Strikes" Anti-Piracy Measures Unveiled

Tech Cases

• Hacker Gary McKinnon will not face UK charges
• The bizarre tale of John McAfee, spymaster
• Hacker, Activist Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide

Bandwidth

• Susan Crawford: "Captive Audience"--"[W]e've allowed a handful of cable companies to become monopolies that stifle competition and innovation. Their monopoly status is also why Americans pay more money for worse Internet service than consumers in most other developed nations."
• Gangnam Bandwidth, American Style --"For most Americans, five years from now, the best network available to them will be the same network they have today."
• Senator introduces bill to regulate data caps
• U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, Google CIO To Unveil Free WiFi In NYC's Chelsea Neighborhood
• FCC to unleash unlicensed spectrum, relieve 'Wi-Fi traffic jam'
• Why Is Google Fiber the Country's Only Super-Speed Internet?
• China Shames U.S. With Plan to Speed 'Last Mile' Internet

Netflix

• Netflix gains eight Warner Bros. TV shows Salon
• Netflix to debut new 'Arrested Development' episodes in May
• Netflix, Cable and Redefining the "Hit"
• HBO Inks Exclusive, 10-Year Deal With Universal To Keep Content Out Of Netflix's Hands
• AT&T takes on Netflix, Hulu with own VOD service--"In what appears to be a defensive move, AT&T will offer its TV customers access to a library of movies for $5 a month. The company says it's just an enhancement of its service."