Apple’s Ban On iPod Sync Software Stymied By Wikileaks

The iPodHash project is an effort to open the iPod and iPhone to third-party media software other than Apple’s iTunes.

BY THOMAS CLABURN (InformationWeek)

 

Apple’s legal effort to remove the source code and related Web pages that could create iTunes-like software from the Internet appears to have failed.

The company succeeded last month in removing information about the project from the public BluWiki.com site by claiming that the posted code violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

But last week, the offending Web pages were published on WikiLeaks, a site accustomed to resisting takedown demands.

The project, named iPodHash, is an effort to open the iPod and iPhone to third-party media software other than Apple’s iTunes.

“Apple added a hashing mechanism to its iTunesDB file from 6th generation iPods,” one of the WikiLeaks documents explains. “This hashing mechanism was soon reverse engineered, and hence third-party applications were able to write to iPod classic and iPod nano 3G. With iPhone firmware upgrade 2.0, (or iPod touch 2.0 or iPhone 3G), Apple changed the hashing scheme. And here we are to reverse it yet again.”

To do so, the project participants are seeking “someone with knowledge of x86 ASM, to convert small piece of ASM code to C [programming language].” They aim to use this information to allow third-party media software to synchronize media files on iPods and iPhones with copies of those files stored on a PC.

Apple last month sent a cease-and-desist letter to Sam Odio, who operates BluWiki, demanding that he remove the pages related to iPodHash. An attorney representing the company claimed that BluWiki “is disseminating information designed to circumvent Apple’s FairPlay digital rights management system.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation disagrees with Apple’s position. Last week, the cyberliberties advocacy group said that Apple’s DMCA claim doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann claimed that the iPodHash project has not yet succeeded, which means Apple is trying to ban technical speech rather than functional code that enables the circumvention of a digital lock.

He also claimed that the iTunesDB file is authored by the iPod owner rather than by Apple, just as Microsoft doesn’t own the copyright to documents authored in Word. That gives the iPod owner the right to access the file, he argued.

And von Lohmann pointed out that Apple’s lawyers have overlooked the DMCA exemption for efforts that circumvent technological protections “for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs.”

First appeared in InformationWeek. Thanks to InformationWeek and Thomas Claburn for covering this document. Copyright remains with the aforementioned. Contact informationweek.com for reprint rights.

Sick fuckers!

Detainee seeks proof of torture in British lawsuit

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — Attorneys for a detainee held here as an alleged al Qaeda co-conspirator filed suit against the British government on Tuesday, claiming it would violate its own foreign policy by permitting a former resident to face war crimes trial here with evidence allegedly obtained by torture.

Pentagon officials have not yet charged Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohammed, 29, with war crimes. In the last, aborted U.S. effort to stage military commissions, he was accused of planning to explode a radioactive ”dirty bomb” in New York City.

The suit seeks to extract from the British government any secret intelligence that the two war on terror allies may have exchanged in the case in a bid to prove any trial would be tainted by torture.

Pakistani security forces arrested Mohammed at the Karachi airport in April 2002. From there, his lawyers claim, he disappeared into a secret network of U.S. supported prisons — including 18 months in Morocco between 2002 and 2004.

There, according to an affidavit his London lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, filed at the U.S. Supreme Court, he confessed under torture to crimes he never committed.

”The torture included shackling, being suspended from walls and ceilings, brutal beatings and being cut all over his body with a scalpel, including his genitals,” according to the 21-page petition filed Tuesday at the British High Court of Justice.

“Unsurprisingly, the claimant co-operated to avoid further torture.”

President Bush has said the United States does not engage in torture.

Under military commissions law, evidence obtained through coercion may be admitted at trial, if the military judge considers it necessary. But evidence from torture is banned, because it is illegal under both U.S. and international law.

It will be up to each detainee’s judge to decide the distinction between the two once the trials get under way in the first exclusively U.S. war crimes tribunals since World War II.

Mohammed lived seven years in London, starting at age 16. His family had fled his native Addis Ababa, first to the Washington, D.C., area, then to Britain.

He claims he never joined al Qaeda but confessed to crimes he never committed under torture. His lawyers say he traveled to Pakistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on a religious journey to shake a drug habit.

His attorneys argue in the pleadings that the British government has evidence that could help Mohammed prove he was tortured and are obliged to assist in his defense under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, as well as British law.

”Mr. Mohammed has been the victim of extraordinary rendition, horrific torture, years of detention without trial, all apparently with the assistance of or, at least, the Nelsonian blindness of the British government,” solicitor Richard Stein said, releasing the suit on behalf of the legal aid organization Reprieve. “It beggars belief that they will not lift a finger to help a British resident when he may face the death penalty.”

Since the Bush administration opened the Guantánamo prison camps in January 2002, the British government has systematically succeeded through diplomatic channels in securing the release of its citizens plus several former legal British residents held here as “enemy combatants.”

Some of the citizens had been earlier identified as candidates for trial by commission.

British legal experts have long argued that the U.S. war court doesn’t meet international norms; some have called it a “kangaroo court.”

Last year, it specifically included Mohammed’s name on a list of detainees whose release it sought, to no avail.

Now, his attorneys suspect he will be charged as the Pentagon prosecutor revives old cases earlier halted by the Supreme Court.

In part to prove their case, the lawyers quote Mohammed as telling them from behind the razor wire at Guantánamo that in his first year of secret detention his interrogators referred to material in his case provided by the British intelligence service MI-5.

In the earlier aborted war court cases, Mohammed was among the most colorful of commission defendants.

He spoke extemporaneously at pretrial proceedings in British accented English, declared the process a ”CON-mission,” insisted on serving as his own defense attorney and wore a Pakistani-style tunic and trousers he had his attorneys dye fluorescent orange to illustrate his prison camp attire.

In the intervening years, according to his Pentagon attorney, Air Force Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, he has declined emotionally and mentally in the isolation of this offshore Navy base, at times smearing feces on the walls of his cell and on himself to protest his conditions.

Prison camp spokesmen have confirmed the presence of a feces smearer and said he was segregated from the other ”enemy combatants” because he was disruptive but have never identified the man under a policy they say is designed to protect a detainee’s privacy.

Clinton+War=$5.00 A Gallon Gas

Hillary is a repubcrat, she votes for the war in Iraq, which creates instability in the world oil market and leads to sky high gas prices. This tax free holiday bullshit is designed to confuse the voters, to take your mind off all the bad votes she’s made. As a life long democrat, the things she says and does remind me of many republican(s) and it makes me sick. I don’t trust the Clintons anymore, she lies, she dissembles, she obfuscates and will say or do anything to win this race.  

Obama throws the Rev under the BUS

NO! Wright threw him under the bus when he accused Obama of being ” a politician” as if Obama would say anything to get elected. I think this is a perfect opening for Mr. Obama to exploit the difference between his ideals and those of the Black Liberation Theology to the american people. 

MICT blocklist 11 Jan 2007

Thai website censorship jumps by more than 500% since coup!

The January 11, 2007 official blocklist contains 13,435 websites, an increase of more than 500% over the 2,475 sites blocked by MICT’s 13 October 2006 list, compiled following Thailand’s military coup d’etat on 19 September.

In addition to this figure, the Royal Thai Police make public that they block more than 32,500 websites directly; a further unspecified number are blocked at Thailand’s Internet gateway by the Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT). No identification of websites blocked has ever been disclosed to the public nor do these government agencies disclose which criteria they use to block.

The military coup led by Thai Army General Sonthi Boonyaratglin considered Internet censorship to be of such high priority that he signed his fifth order on 20 September to require web-blocking of sites critical of the coup. This was implemented by appointing Dr. Sitthichai Pokaiudom ICT Minister and Official Censor of the Military Coup.

MICT blocks websites by “requesting” all Thai ISPs to block, under the terms of the Telecommunications Act, from a list it compiles periodically. “Informal” email “requests” for blocking are then made to each ISP.

There are presently more than 50 commercial ISPs in Thailand and around 10 non-profit ISPs. The Act requires ISPs to comply with all government requests or face loss of operating licence or other punitive sanctions such as restriction of bandwidth.

This blocklist has not been made public since 2004 when 1,275 websites were blocked. However, it must be provided to Thai ISPs for implementation.

MICT’s 2007 budget is five billion eleven million Thai baht (THB5,011,000,000). It would appear Internet censorship is the only function of this Ministry of “Information” yet MICT discloses no information to the Thai taxpayer.

Chapter Three of the 1997 “People’s” Constitution of Thailand clearly protected freedom of communication and expression which, of course, includes the Internet. The coup has scrapped the Constitution but created a vacuum of law while a new Constitution is being discussed. It would appear the 1997 Constitution remains the foundation of Thai law until another is voted in its place.

Currently Midnight University has the only website in Thailand protected under Thai law by an Administrative Court restraining order pending their lawsuit. It should be noted that it is hardly unusual for such cases to take well over a decade to be decided by Thai courts.

In the wake of September 19, many Thai Web discussion boards and other fora were blocked or ordered to self-censor, stifling freedom of expression and freedom of association. 19sep.org, a site critical of the Thailand’s coup, has been added to MICT’s blocklist for the sixth time.

MICT’s blocklist shows a frightening increase in thought control and abrogation of civil liberties and human rights in Thailand. Although website censorship was initiated under the deposed Thai Rak Thai government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the new military government of Thailand has taken all of us to a new dimension of repression.

Retrieved from “https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/MICT_blocklist_11_Jan_2007“

Why can’t Hillary Clinton close the deal?

Everybody in the MSM is asking why can’t Barak close the deal? Ansewer: He’s WON! He doesn’t need to close anything, it’s another false argument created by Clinton and the MSM. The Main stream Media wants this race to continue so they don’t have to report on real issues like Torture, Iraq, theft, war crimes i could go on for hours. Barak Obama has run a superb campaigne and has won more votes and delegates which makes it virtually impossiable for HRC to win, unless the SUPER DUPER delegates overturn it.

Obama v Pope

Presidential candidate Barak Obama held an event in Philadelphia, Pa and 35, 000 people attended. The Pope on the other hand held a youth event today and only 25, 000 people attended. What the press in all there adulation of the Pope fails to report is, it was the current Pope who worked to cover up the sex scandal by moving clergy and private settlements.

Obama Wins Texas!

First off , when the final count is done Barak Obama will have won Texas. I’m Sick to death of the Clinton campaign, looks to me more like rove/rnc style scorch and burn race. Hill said that Mccain is more qualified to be President than Obama, which sounds like if she can’t win the primary than the repubs should win the white house. The clintons think they OWN the Democratic party, we the people own the fucking party. Bill/Hil would rather destroy the party than lose, well fuck you and i hope you do win the primary because  you will lose to mccain. I’ve been a lifer Democrat, but i would NEVER vote for a clinton again! For hill to say “i don’t know if Obama is not a Muslim” was the last straw. Fuck You hillary i would vote for the worst repub before i would vote for you because of the long term damage you’ve done to the Democratic Party. Hill is a whiny ice-queen who does not deserve to be elected president let alone senator.

Off topic, but this is funny