Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The European Commission currently has proposals on the table to extend performers’ copyright terms. Described by Professor Martin Kretschmer as the “Beatles Extension Act”, the proposed measure would extend copyright from 50 to 95 years after recording. A vast number of classical tracks are at stake; the copyright on recordings from the fifties and early sixties is nearing its expiration date, after which it would normally enter the public domain or become ‘public property’. E.U. Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services Charlie McCreevy is proposing this extension, and if the other relevant Directorate Generales (Information Society, Consumers, Culture, Trade, Competition, etc.) agree with the proposal, it will be sent to the European Parliament.

Wikinews contacted Erik Josefsson, European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (E.F.F.), who invited us to Brussels, the heart of E.U. policy making, to discuss this new proposal and its implications. Expecting an office interview, we arrived to discover that the event was a party and meetup conveniently coinciding with FOSDEM 2008 (the Free and Open source Software Developers’ European Meeting). The meetup was in a sprawling city centre apartment festooned with E.F.F. flags and looked to be a party that would go on into the early hours of the morning with copious food and drink on tap. As more people showed up for the event it turned out that it was a truly international crowd, with guests from all over Europe.

Eddan Katz, the new International Affairs Director of the E.F.F., had come over from the U.S. to connect to the European E.F.F. network, and he gladly took part in our interview. Eddan Katz explained that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is “A non-profit organisation working to protect civil liberties and freedoms online. The E.F.F. has fought for information privacy rights online, in relation to both the government and companies who, with insufficient transparency, collect, aggregate and make abuse of information about individuals.” Another major focus of their advocacy is intellectual property, said Eddan: “The E.F.F. represents what would be the public interest, those parts of society that don’t have a concentration of power, that the private interests do have in terms of lobbying.”

Becky Hogge, Executive Director of the U.K.’s Open Rights Group (O.R.G.), joined our discussion as well. “The goals of the Open Rights Group are very simple: we speak up whenever we see civil, consumer or human rights being affected by the poor implementation or the poor regulation of new technologies,” Becky summarised. “In that sense, people call us -I mean the E.F.F. has been around, in internet years, since the beginning of time- but the Open Rights Group is often called the British E.F.F.“

Saturday, April 30, 2005

A chemical part of the saliva of a poisonous lizard, the Gila monster, has become an integral partner in the control of Type 2 diabetes. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved its use for people who have not achieved adequate control of their diabetes with oral medications.

Byetta, or exenatide, is produced by Amylin Pharmaceuticals. It is injected before eating morning and evening meals as part of a combination treatment with oral drugs. The FDA said it could be approved as a stand-alone treatment if the drug companies can support such use with data.

Eli Lilly & Co. was the development partner in creation of the drug.

“With Byetta’s demonstrated effects on blood sugar and its safety profile, physicians and patients now have a new approach to fight the growing diabetes epidemic,” said Sidney Taurel, CEO of Lilly.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Johan Boyden is running for the Communist Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Toronto Centre riding. Wikinews interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Monday, January 2, 2006

Microsoft Windows metafiles have been discovered to be a vector for computer viruses, as they are treated as image files, but can execute machine code. Windows metafiles often use the extension .wmf files, but they may also execute if their extension is .jpeg, .png or any other common image extension.

This vulnerability affects any Windows software which displays images, including instant messenger software, email clients, and web browsers. Firefox reduces the vulnerability by asking a user before executing Windows metafiles, but metafiles masquerading as another format will still be executed automatically by the operating system.

Microsoft has not yet issued a patch for the vulnerability, prompting Ilfak Guilfanov to release an unofficial patch. Microsoft’s security advisory recommends unregistering shimgvw.dll to disable handling of Windows MetaFiles. Critics point out that shimgvw.dll could become re-registered by malicious processes or other installations. They also suggest that malicious Windows Metafiles could merely remain “dormant” until shimgvw.dll is re-registered.

The exploit has been used to attack online forums which allow embedding of image files via <img> tags, prompting some gaming forums to disable <img> tags [1]. Any site accepting image media upload, such as avatars, will also be vulnerable if this site accepts .wmf files, possibly masquerading as another media file format.

The exploit has also been used by an instant messaging worm, which appears to provide a backdoor for later exploitation via an IRC bot [2].

The McAfee antivirus company said the WMF vulnerability is being exploited to drop over 30 variants of the Bifrose backdoor trojan horse, and exploitation by other malware is likely. McAfee estimates the first generation of such exploits had infected more than 6% of their customer base by 31 December 2005.

“The WMF vulnerability probably affects more computers than any other security vulnerability, ever,” said Mikko of F-Secure. [3]

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Buffalo, New York —Attorney Arthur J. Giacalone has filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court against the city of Buffalo‘s Common Council and Planning board, alleging that the proposed Elmwood Village Hotel was approved “without giving meaningful consideration to either the impact on the adjoining residential neighborhood, or the unique character of this section of Elmwood Avenue.” Giacalone is representing Nancy Pollina and Patricia Morris, who operate the Don Apparel (a vintage clothing and collectibles shop at 1119 Elmwood Avenue), Angeline Genovese and Evelyn Bencinich, owners of residences on Granger Place which abut the rear of the proposed site, Nina Freudenheim, a resident of nearby Penhurst Park, and Sandra Girage, the owner of a two-family residence on Forest Avenue less than a hundred feet from the proposed hotel’s sole entrance and exit driveway.

The Elmwood Village Hotel is a 72-room, seven-million-dollar hotel proposed by Savarino Construction Services Corporation and designed by architect Karl Frizlen of the Frizlen Group. Its construction would require the demolition of at least five buildings, currently at 1109-1121 Elmwood, which house several shops and residents. Although the properties are “under contract,” it is still not known whether Savarino Construction actually owns the buildings. It is believed that Hans Mobius, a resident of Clarence, New York and former Buffalo mayoral candidate, is still the owner. The hotel is expected to be a franchise of the Wyndham Hotels group.

The lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court, is seeking annulment of the City of Buffalo’s rezoning and site plan approvals for the hotel.

“Had the Common Council members complied with State law and waited to receive comments from the County’s planning agency, they would have been obliged to address the County’s concerns regarding the replacement of former residential buildings with ‘a much larger commercial structure’, the health effects of placing a 55-vehicle parking area next to existing homes, and the absence of a traffic study to assess the likelihood that the project would add ‘considerable congestion’ to the Elmwood/Forest intersection,” said Giacalone.

“The four-story hotel will overshadow the neighboring homes and backyards, impacting quality of life and property values. Equally as important, the project will displace a unique and diverse group of businesses that have served nearby college students and Buffalo’s arts and theater community for many years, and replace them with upscale retail establishments that will cater, not to local residents, but to affluent tourists and business travelers,” added Giacalone.

On March 22, 2006 the city’s Common Council approved the rezoning for the proposed hotel and on March 28, the Planning board approved the design and site plan of the hotel.

The lawsuit, entitled Pollina et al. v. Common Council of the City of Buffalo et al., [Index No. I-2006-3885], has been assigned to the Honorable Rose H. Sconiers, and is scheduled for oral argument at 9:30 A.M. on Thursday June 8, 2006.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Internet users on the Chinese-forums.com website report that the longtime block of Wikipedia by China has been at least temporarily lifted. Absent an announcement from the Chinese government, it’s unclear what the conditions were that caused the site to be accessible from within China.

A blog by Wikipedia contributor Andrew Lih says that someone in “Beijing emailed me saying he could suddenly start using Wikipedia again. Some folks in Hubei said it was still blocked. Shanghai and Guangdong users said parts were accessible.”

He continued that “from a Beijing China Netcom’s residential DSL connection, the English language and other foreign language versions are now accessible, but the Chinese version is still blocked”, noting that the Chinese-language version is the most important one to most Wikipedians in the country.

The blog entry goes on to explain the finer points of China’s blocking system, which is more complex than most media outlets suggest.

Wikimedia head Jimmy Wales told Moneycontrol.com yesterday that, “We don’t know what they took offense to. We really don’t intend to compromise the way Google did. We also feel that the block is an error. I am trying to set up high-level meetings in China to state our case and explain why we should be unblocked. We have no idea what the result of that would be. But we are somewhat hopeful. Wikipedia is not a haven for dissidents but an encyclopedia. About 99.9 percent of Wikipedia has topics that are not of interest to the Chinese Government. There is no political component. We are hopeful that they can see the point.”

He also told the outlet, he stressed how such bans were blocking Chinese perspectives in the global media. “[The] Chinese people would like to contribute to Wikipedia to give the Chinese point of view for the entire world to see. And China needs to be better understood by the rest of the world.”

The third block of Wikipedia, which was implemented 19 October 2005, was issued without explanation or an expected length. Wikipedia has been blocked twice before, the first from 2-21 June 2004, due to the 15th anniversary of the Tian’anmen Square Incident.

A website called baidu.com runs a self-censored wiki-based encyclopedia website, called baidubaike.com, launched in April of this year.

Wikipedia is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organisation based out of St. Petersburg, Florida. Its 2007 annual convention, Wikimania, is set to take place in Taipei.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

This past Sunday, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a bill known as “Rocky’s Law” that requires Illinois high schools, through the local school district, to buy catastrophic injury insurance up to US$3 million or medical costs for up to five years, whichever one comes first, that covers student athletes. The insurance must cover student athletes while they are competing.

The legislation was named after Rasul “Rocky” Clark. In 2000, the Eisenhower High School football player became paralyzed from the waist down as a result of a tackle during a game. His school based health insurance covered the costs of his medical treatment. A legislator sponsoring the bill noted that the need for this type of insurance is rare. Clark’s mother attended the legislation signing. Her son died last year.

Before parents can claim money from school insurance, they first must pay out US$50,000. Schools have until January 1, 2014 to comply with the law. Schools cannot charge students more than US$5 to defray the cost of insurance. If a school district already requires student to be covered through private health insurance, they are exempted from this law.