Tag Archive for: appeal

US Wins Appeal to Extradite Julian Assange

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Apologies to anyone who was hoping for a quiet December on the cybersecurity front. Late in the week, a vulnerability in Apache’s Log4j logging framework exposed large swaths of the internet to relatively simple hacking. There’s not much you can do to protect yourself here, since the issue is largely server-focused, but the full fallout will likely affect many services you use on a daily basis. Worse still, malicious hackers have already developed ways to exploit it, and are actively hunting for potential victims. Cheers!

This week also marked the one-year anniversary of the SolarWinds hack, or at least the first public hints of it. We took a look at the progress that has been made to prevent this sort of supply chain attack in the future, and all that’s still left to do. The good news is that the campaign served as a wake-up call that spurred real commitments from the public and private sector alike. The bad news? There’s no one fix, and the available options will take a long time to implement in a meaningful way.

In the good news department, Microsoft this week said it seized domains used by a Chinese hacking group, the latest in a series of actions by the company that have cumulatively resulted in over 10,000 sites being taken down. It’s part of Microsoft’s strategy to disrupt these groups through the legal system, gaining court orders that allow it to shut down domains used for command-and-control servers.

Russia took steps toward blocking the anonymous browser Tor this week, telling the country’s internet service providers to prevent access Tor’s website and disrupting some access points. It’s the latest in a series of moves the Kremlin has taken lately to isolate its internet from the rest of the world.

And if you’re a Verizon customer, you may have been opted into some gnarly data tracking even if you’d previously opted out. Surprise! Here’s how to turn it off for real this time.

But wait, there’s more. Each week we round up all the security news WIRED didn’t cover in depth. Click on the headlines to read the full stories.

Since his April 2019 arrest, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has fought US attempts to extradite him to face hacking and Espionage Act charges. While he…

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Internet Security Non-Profit Quad9 Files Appeal Against Copyright Lawsuit from Sony Music Germany

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ZURICH, Sept. 1, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — The non-profit Swiss DNS provider Quad9, has filed an objection against an interim injunction (310 O 99/21) obtained by Sony Music Germany from the Hamburg Regional Court. This injunction requires Quad9 to implement network blocks that has the potential to set a precedent for other Internet organizations which are drawn into a copyright case in Germany as well as other EU nations.

Unlike many other DNS resolvers, Quad9’s privacy-friendly, free service avoids storing personal data about surfing behavior and protects against phishing and malware attacks. The interim injunction issued by the Hamburg Regional Court now means that Quad9 is forced to implement DNS blocking for a domain name named in the injunction which resolves to a website that is suspected of offering links to copyrighted material.

Quad9 is supported by German based Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e.V. (GFF) and eco Association of the Internet Industry (eco.de) in its defense against Sony.

“If non-profit IT security projects like Quad9 must bear the costs of combating copyright infringements, they can no longer offer their services in Germany in a way that covers their costs. As a result, everyone’s IT security suffers,” explains GFF project coordinator Julia Reda.

“We view this case with Sony Music as a much bigger issue outside of Quad9’s mission to keep the Internet safe. This eventual final outcome of this ruling will set a precedent for European cybersecurity and policy,” said John Todd, Managing Director of Quad9. “This isn’t just about Quad9’s DNS recursive security capabilities; we believe it has a much broader application to a wide range of internet services, and service providers should understand the implications of either outcome of the case.”

“The German Bundestag abolished the German interferer liability for Internet access providers years ago to facilitate the operation of open WIFIs. The view of the Hamburg Regional Court, according to which DNS providers such as Quad9 cannot invoke this exemption from liability, must not be allowed to prevail under any circumstances,” says Reda.

“Since the announcement of the ruling in late June,…

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Police Appeal To Witness To Come Forward As Northland Homicide Investigation Continues

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Monday, 11 January 2021, 1:17 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Police

Please attribute to Detective Senior Sergeant Geoff
McCarthy, Northland Police:

Police is continuing to
investigate the death of 22-year-old Bram Willems who was
killed following an incident in Opua on Thursday evening (7
January 2021).

A 14-year-old male has been charged
with murder in relation to Mr Willems’ death and is due to
appear in the Whangārei High Court on February 4.

The
investigation into Mr Willems’ death continues, and we are
reiterating our appeal for any information on both an
incident in Kawakawa and sightings of a
vehicle.

Police have been canvassing CCTV footage and
we believe there was a woman who witnessed an altercation
outside of the Work and Income building on Kawakawa’s main
street at around 10pm on Thursday.

We are asking her
to please contact Police either by visiting her nearest
station or contacting 105 and quoting file number
210108/7855.

She was not involved in the incident but
it is important that Police speak with her.

Anyone who
may have taken photographs or filmed the incident in
Kawakawa is asked to upload that here, https://crew.nzpolice.org(link
is external)

We’re also looking for sightings of a
silver Toyota Altezza, registration MQE620 (pictured), in
the Kawakawa/Opua/Kerikeri areas late on Thursday night and
into Friday.

Information can be given to Police via
105 again quoting file number
210108/7855.

ENDS

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Well, apart from the who, why and how of it, the recent hack of the Reserve Bank’s computer security defences seems crystal clear. It happened.

It happened about five months or so after the…

Source…

Monster Energy Loses Appeal On Monsta Pizza Trademark Ruling

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Monster Energy, maker of caffeinated liquid crank, has a long and legendary history of being roughly the most obnoxious trademark bully on the planet. It faces stiff competition in this arena of bad, of course, but it has always put up quite a fight to win that title. The company either sues or attempts to block trademarks for everything that could even possibly be barely linked to the term “monster” in any way. One such case was its opposition to a trademark registration for Monsta Pizza in the UK. Pizza is, of course, not a beverage, but that didn’t stop Monster Energy from trying to keep the pizza chain from its name. It lost that opposition, with the IPO pointing out that its citizens are not stupid enough to be confused between drinks and pizza.

And that should have been the end of the story, except that this is Monster Energy we’re talking about, so of course it appealed its loss. Its grounds for appeal amounted to “Nuh-uh! The public really might be confused!” Thankfully, Monster Energy lost this appeal as well.

However, the bid was rejected “in its entirety” at the Court of Appeal.

Chris Dominey, who founded travelling pizzeria Monsta with Christopher Lapham in 2017, said he had been “immensely relieved” to reach the end of the battle but the business remained in debt due to legal fees which could not be recouped.

He said: “It feels great, I have got my business back, and it does feel good to beat a ‘big bully’ so to speak. If you are confident that you are right you should go for it, but but I would tell other small businesses to beware that it does cost a lot of money.”

He’s not kidding. In all, Dominey’s business is out over eight thousand pounds in legal costs, having only been able to recover a fraction of what it cost him to defend his business against what appears to be a completely frivolous trademark opposition. That’s how trademark bullying works, of course. Large companies like Monster Energy rely on that onerous cost to be able to get away with its spurious demands. That simply is not how trademark law is supposed to work.

But in the modern age, there are ways a business can get its customers to help fight back against such bullying.

The business uses a monster-shaped pizza oven, which its logo is designed to represent, meaning a name change would have required considerable upheaval. Mr Dominey thanked people who contributed to a crowdfunding campaign which helped pay for some of the legal costs, and those who “gave us support and told us to keep fighting”.

The world needs more companies like Monsta Pizza fighting back against this kind of bullying to have a more global impact on trademark bullying. For now, we’ll just have to enjoy another Monster Energy loss.

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