"German police" Shut Down The Ohm Project

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Thursday July 10, 2008 · 3:43 AM PDT

2008/07/10 · 03:43

[Quick Refresher: The Ohm Project is a site providing information about threats to Internet privacy and freedom along with advice and tips about how to fight back against these encroachments. Last week, about 10,000 unique visitors came to the site, mainly through two diaries on the "Recommended" list at dailykos.com, reddit.com and numerous other sites.]

The Ohm Project (ohmproject.org) was knocked off the Net yesterday. The site has been hosted on a German server run by E-Tunnels, a VPN provider and sponsor of The Ohm Project.

Both The Ohm Project and E-Tunnels went dark on Wednesday about midday Central European time. No notice whatsoever was provided to either party prior to shutdown. When an inquiry was made to the service provider, he said that "the German police" had made three complaints beginning about a month ago about unspecified "abuse" originating from one of the IP addresses assigned to E-Tunnels.

ohmproject

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Thursday July 03, 2008 · 4:05 AM PDT

2008/07/03 · 04:05

For those who need to catch up:

Viacom (CBS, Comedy Central) is suing YouTube/Google for $1 billion for facilitating copyright violations when videos (e.g. Daily Show, Colbert, CBS News) are uploaded to the YouTube site.

During discovery, Viacom demanded that Google turn over just about everything in its database, and the trial judge has ruled that they will have to turn over:

* all data concerning what videos users watched and uploaded;
* usernames;
* user IP addresses.

It's yet another example of the copyright laws being used to suppress free speech. Don't buy it? Read below the fold.

ohmproject

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Monday June 30, 2008 · 5:54 AM PDT

2008/06/30 · 05:54

Oh yeah. 9/11 did change everything.

Remember the 90s? It was the dawn of an era of globalization and easy, instantaneous movement of information. The hero of this new age was the "road warrior" who jetted around the globe solving problems, selling Infomation Age products and making deals. And the warrior's chief weapon was the state-of-the-art laptap crammed with all the features and data needed to accomplish the task.

Not any more. The Patriot Act, zealous U. S. Customs and TSA officials and a Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling giving a green light to warrantless searches and seizures has made traveling with a laptop very difficult. And if you carry sensitive data on that laptop these days, you're a fool.

ohmproject

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Tuesday May 20, 2008 · 12:12 AM PDT

2008/05/20 · 00:12

cross posted at The Ohm Project: an exercise in resistance

Senior government officials have leaked detailed information about a database of 8 million Americans targeted for detention in case of a declared national emergency.

Called "Main Core," the database's origins date back to the 1980s when the Reagan administration began its "Continuity in Government" planning. The Bush administration stepped up the effort to the point that even John Ashcroft and his deputy, James Comey objected on constitional grounds, leading to the dramatic confrontation between Ashcroft and Comey on on side and Alberto Gonzales (then Bush's lawyer) and Andrew Card on the other as Ashcroft lay critically ill in an intensive care unit.

http://http://

ohmproject

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Monday May 19, 2008 · 3:09 AM PDT

2008/05/19 · 03:09

cross posted at The Ohm Project: an exercise in resistance

High resolution cameras covering nearly every inch of public space. National IDs crammed with biometric data. Facial recognition software that can't be defeated even by plastic surgery. And a massive database to connect the cameras, the IDs, all financial and medical data.

It's not merely resident in the mind's eye of a screenwriter of the next dystopian thriller. According to Naomi Klein in the latest issue of Rolling Stone , China has already implemented much of the above and is only a year or two away from completing this Information Age 1984 with the eager help of U. S. corporations and an American government that looks the other way as anti-export laws are violated.

ohmproject

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Tuesday May 06, 2008 · 8:12 AM PDT

2008/05/06 · 08:12

Washington Post editor Jim Brady wants to put an end to the "back alley environment" on the Internet. His feelings and those of some of his subordinates (in particular, Deborah Howell), have been injured in the past by comments that Brady felt were the kind of thing you'd find "carved on the wall of a public toilet stall."

The solution, Brady says, is to end Internet anonymity.

"People say things online they would never say when disagreeing with someone at the dinner table.

ohmproject

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Saturday April 26, 2008 · 10:10 PM PDT

2008/04/26 · 22:10

It's called the "Internet real-name system" and it's touted as the perfect antidote to terrorism, child pornography, Internet abuse and fraud.

South Korea, where it's been the law since 2005, attributes all kinds of benefits to it from securing "healthy development" of the blog world to attracting more investment to web-oriented businesses. Prior to obtaining any webmail services or even signing up for an Internet membership or chat site, South Koreans are required to submit an application with their real name, address, ID number and telephone. Internet providers who fail to collect accurate information from their customers are subject to a fine equivalent to $30,000 per person.

ohmproject

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Thursday April 24, 2008 · 4:35 AM PDT

2008/04/24 · 04:35

Democratic Congressman John Conyers and Republicans on his House Judiciary Committee have found common ground on a renewed effort by federal law enforcement officials to require ISPs and other Internet gateways to retain customer data for six months or longer.

Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla has raised the usual spectre of sexual predators in chat rooms as a justification. As always, FBI chief Robert Mueller is using terrorism as an excuse.

And the former liberal lion John Conyers, D-Mich, is right there with them, saying that new legislation requiring ISPs to collect and retain data on their customers "would be most welcome."

Privacy advocates had enjoyed a temporary victory when former Attorney General Alberto Gonazales resigned. Gonzales had pushed hard for such legislation.

But now the feds are back demanding more spying powers.

ohmproject

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Wednesday April 09, 2008 · 8:57 AM PDT

2008/04/09 · 08:57

"Deep-packet" snooping by American and European ISPs may present a more serious threat to democracy and freedom of expression than most realize. A Washington Post story over the weekend detailed how Americans are increasingly subjected to intense spying by the ISPs who are using their ability to "sniff" customers' Internet activity to collect data for profit.

ohmproject

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Sunday March 23, 2008 · 10:53 AM PDT

2008/03/23 · 10:53

Cross-posted from The Ohm Project

Imagine that somewhere close to your local community there exists a secret computer center. Equipped with powerful mainframe computers and the database integrating powers of XML, this government-funded facility gathers data from thousands of sources including local, state and federal law enforcement, social welfare agencies, hospitals, banks, telephone companies, ISPs, computer search engines, private security companies, schools--essentially an endless list. With its massive computing power, this secret outpost is able to search and sift this data using vaguely defined criteria like "suspicious activity" in order to identify individuals for even closer scrutiny. Finally, this computer center dispenses the results of its analyses to local, state and federal law enforcement and to the military so that they can take action against the citizens tagged as threats.

Such a scenario is no longer the product of a paranoid, over-stimulated imagination. It is a reality called "fusion centers," forty of which have been established throughout the United States.

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