When The 'Sharing Economy' Turns Into The 'Missing Or Stolen Economy'

from the anybody-seen-my-300,000-umbrellas-lying-around? dept

The sharing economy -- actually better-described as a rental economy -- is very much in vogue, inspired by the high-profile examples of Airbnb and Uber. But Western enthusiasm pales in comparison to that of Chinese entrepreneurs, who seem to have taken the view that the model will work for anything. For example, alongside the companies that rent out homes and cars, there are now some that will let you pick up an umbrella in a public spot, use it for a short while, and then return it. At least, that's the theory. But the South China Morning Post reports that the Sharing E Umbrella startup ran into a few problems:

Just weeks after making 300,000 brollies available to the public via a rental scheme, Sharing E Umbrella announced that most of them had gone missing, news website Thepaper.cn reported on Thursday.

The company was launched back in April, and is operating in 11 Chinese cities. Customers borrow umbrellas after paying a deposit of about $3, and a fee of 10 cents for every 30 minutes. Undeterred by the fact that each missing umbrella represents a loss of $9, the company's founder says he hopes to proceed on a larger scale by making 30 million of them available across the country by the end of the year. Here's why he's convinced he's on to a winner:

After seeing the launch of bike-sharing schemes across the country, the Shenzhen-based businessman said he "thought that everything on the street can now be shared".

Perhaps he should have waited a little before modelling his business on bike sharing. Caixin reported last month that Wukong, one of the smaller players in this crowded market, has just closed down -- after most of its bikes went missing:

Wukong operated its 1,200 bikes in the southwestern city of Chongqing. But most of the bikes were lost because the firm didn't embed GPS devices in the vehicles. By the time the company decided the devices were necessary, it had run out of money and failed to raise more

Wukong isn't the only rental company that lost track of most of its bikes, as Shanghaiist.com notes:

Wu Shenghua founded Beijing-based 3Vbike in February, using 600,000 RMB ($89,000) of his own money to purchase the first 1,000 bikes. But only four months later, he told the Legal Evening News that there were only dozens left.

Despite those failures, money continues to pour into the Chinese bicycle rental sector: last month, one of the leading startups, Mobike, announced $600 million in new funding, which it will use it to expand outside China. Let's hope people there remember to bring the bikes back.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: bikes, cars, china, sharing economy, theft, tracking

National Police Union President Says Asset Forfeiture Abuse Is A 'Fake Issue' Generated By The Media

from the scapegoating-a-check-against-government-power dept

Chuck Canterbury, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, has been given an editorial megaphone over at the Daily Caller. Canterbury's using this platform to defend the pretty much indefensible: civil asset forfeiture.

Colloquially known as "cops going shopping for things they want," asset forfeiture supposedly is used to take funds and property away from criminal organizations. In reality, it's become an easy way for law enforcement to take the property of others without having to put much effort into justifying the seizures. In most states, convictions are not required, meaning supposed criminal suspects are free to go… but their property isn't.

Canterbury, who previously aired his grievances nationally over director Quentin Tarantino's participation in an anti-police brutality rally, opens up this piece by trying to equate factual reporting with current hot button topic "fake news."

Amidst the current national furor against “fake news” is another, more pervasive issue of creating “fake issues” like the myth of policing for profit. There’s been widespread discussion about the need to end the Federal equitable sharing program because a journalist or columnist writes a sympathetic piece describing a case in which the system may not have functioned as intended.

Canterbury admits the "system" doesn't always "function as intended" (although many could argue these cases illustrate the system working exactly as intended), but argues that every report about a questionable seizure is the equivalent of fake news. Innocent people being deprived of their property by profit-focused law enforcement agencies is a "fake issue" -- something that apparently wouldn't be covered by a more responsible press.

As is the case any time law enforcement agencies feel compelled to defend their most questionable actions, Canterbury places the blame on the media:

At a time when the number of officers is declining, federal assistance to state and local agencies is evaporating and deliberate attacks on law enforcement officers are rising, how can this issue be a law enforcement priority? Why are anecdotal accounts in the media suddenly making this a priority in the editorial pages of some newspapers?

Oddly, Canterbury views reports backed by court documents and judicial orders as "anecdotal." This may be because asset forfeiture doesn't have much to do with anything normal people consider to be "facts" or "evidence." Very little beyond the anecdotal is needed to permanently separate citizens from their property, as Fault Lines' David Meyer Lindenberg points out:

Once the feds had made their showing of probable cause, the burden, then as now, shifted to the claimant to prove his property wasn’t the proceeds or instrumentality of a crime. Needless to say, that requires him to prove a negative. Even better, while the government only had to show probable cause, the claimant, in proving his negative, had to prove it by a higher standard: a preponderance of the evidence.

There were countless other inequities, like the fact that the government could use hearsay as evidence while claimants couldn’t. All in all, the deck was about as stacked against property owners as one could imagine.

That was how forfeiture worked back in the 1980s, before reform efforts were put into place. Pretty much indistinguishable from now, after the passage of the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act (CAFRA) in 2000 -- something Canterbury claims shows he's on the right side of history with his pro-forfeiture arguments.

The FOP does not disagree that there is a need for civil asset forfeiture reform. In fact, we worked very closely with Senator Jeff Sessions on this issue going back to the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act (CAFRA) of 2000.

The law enforcement community came together to make the necessary changes to the program to ensure due process protections while preserving equitable sharing as a critical law enforcement tool.

This is Canterbury's bid for being perceived as then good guy heading a union full of officers and agencies being unfairly misrepresented by media clickbaitery. Lindenberg points out that pretty much the entirety of the "reform" in the 2000 reform act was the placing of the word "reform" in the bill's title.

Before CAFRA, “fungible” property could be forfeited even if the government couldn’t tie the assets before it to a crime, but only in money laundering cases. CAFRA extended that provision to all civil asset forfeiture cases.

CAFRA reinstated the fugitive disentitlement doctrine, which banned fugitives in criminal cases from trying to recover their assets.

CAFRA amended 28 U.S.C. § 2461 to authorize criminal forfeiture whenever civil forfeiture was allowed. This let the government seize people’s assets before they were tried on criminal charges, thus potentially depriving them of the ability to fund their defense.

Canterbury worked with Sessions (himself a forfeiture fan who has stated the only thing it does is take stuff from people who've "done nothing more than sell dope their whole lives") to weaken this reform effort. A more serious reform effort never had a chance. This is a list of the concessions given to law enforcement in exchange for giving citizens an incrementally-better chance at recovering wrongfully seized property.

The biggest lie in Canterbury's editorial is also the most expected: that asset forfeiture is actually having an effect on criminal activity.

For over 30 years, the asset forfeiture program has allowed law enforcement to deprive criminals of both the proceeds and tools of crime. The resources provided by the equitable sharing program have allowed agencies to participate in joint task forces to thwart and deter serious criminal activity and terrorism, purchase equipment, provide training upgrade technology, engage their communities, and better protect their officers. It has been remarkably successful.

Sure, that was the theory. In actuality, billions of dollars have flowed into law enforcement agencies with barely any diminishment in the amount of drugs flowing into the country. It may seem like the use of forfeited funds to purchase law enforcement equipment lightens the load on taxpayers but that's only if you don't consider any person whose property has been seized without evidence to not be part of the pool of taxpayers.

Using these funds is also a boon for cash-strapped cities and towns, and they're in no hurry to have to start looking for other revenue streams if this one dries up. So, there's plenty of internal opposition to forfeiture reform efforts as well.

Canterbury keeps going back to the claim he can't back up: that asset forfeiture has done anything else other than enrich the law enforcement agencies participating in it. He wraps up his editorial with the standard cop rhetorical device: our word against yours.

[T]o end a decades-long program which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to our nation’s communities and has documented success in deterring and fighting crime based on anecdotal media reports is simply not sound public policy.

Unfortunately for Canterbury, his claim of "documented success" is at least as anecdotal as the media reports he appears to feel have turned the nation against this honorable practice of taking money from alleged criminals without going through the process of actually proving any criminal activity took place. But when you're used to separating people from property using little more than hearsay and hunches, I'm sure anything that contradicts your narrative looks like nothing more than hysteria urged on by an irresponsible press.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, asset seizure, chuck canterbury, police, shopping, theft
Companies: fraternal order of police

Trump's Pick For Attorney General A Big Fan Of Civil Asset Forfeiture

from the status-quo-maintenance dept

Efforts to rein in civil forfeiture have been moving forward around the country. Several states have passed laws that remove some of the perverse incentives that have allowed law enforcement agencies to seize cash, cars, homes, and whatever else might be laying around without criminal convictions. Very few efforts have gone as far as to make convictions a requirement in every case, but most have at least closed the federal loophole that allowed agencies to bypass more restrictive state laws to take control of citizens' assets.

The federal government's use of asset forfeiture still remains untouched. The equitable sharing program that helped local law enforcement agencies skirt state regulations closed briefly due to budget cutbacks, but was revived once the tax dollars started flowing again.

While some legislators have mounted efforts to scale back federal civil asset forfeiture, nothing has made its way to the president's desk. There's a new president on the way and his choice for attorney general isn't going to help those efforts along. Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions is a longtime fan of asset forfeiture and still believes -- despite years of evidence to the contrary -- that it's an effective Drug War weapon, rather than law enforcement agencies going shopping for things they want.

At a 2015 Senate Judiciary Hearing, Sessions had this to say about federal adoption of local forfeitures, as well as forfeiture in general.

[Sessions] said he doesn’t “think it’s wrong to—for federal government to adopt state cases” and added that “taking and seizing and forfeiting, through a government judicial process, illegal gains from criminal enterprises is not wrong.”

Mr. Sessions said he was “very unhappy” with criticism of a program that mostly took money from people who have “done nothing in their lives but sell dope."

It's difficult to square Sessions' "done nothing but sell dope" view on forfeiture with the more common reality: assets seized from people who've "done nothing in their lives" but never "sell dope."

For Christos and Markela Sourovelis, for whom the worst thing was losing their home, “Room 101” was Courtroom 478 in City Hall. This “courtroom’s” name is Orwellian: There was neither judge nor jury in it. There the city government enriched itself — more than $64 million in a recent 11-year span — by disregarding due process requirements in order to seize and sell the property of people who have not been accused, never mind convicted, of a crime.

The Sourovelises’ son, who lived at home, was arrested for selling a small amount of drugs away from home. Soon there was a knock on their door by police who said, “We’re here to take your house” and “You’re going to be living on the street” and “We do this every day.” The Sourovelises’ doors were locked with screws, and their utilities were cut off. They had paid off the mortgage on their $350,000 home, making it a tempting target for policing for profit.

Sessions doesn't care for this program being criticized, despite no law enforcement agency being able to offer up evidence backing his claim that "95%" of forfeitures are linked to drug dealing. Why? Because these agencies don't have that proof. They're not required to. Civil asset forfeiture circumvents the adversarial part of the judicial process almost entirely.

The few cases we do hear about are those that involve amounts worth fighting for. The process is expensive, labyrinthine, and stacked against the former owners of the seized assets. All most agencies have to do is make a few hunch-backed assertions about drug dealers and their tendency to use cash for transactions and their ability to purchase assets with obtained cash. Because convictions aren't an integral part of the process, no investigations are started and no efforts made to ensure the seized assets are the direct result of criminal activity.

Sessions as attorney general won't be able to do much about state laws that prevent law enforcement from partnering with the federal government to route around local statutes, but he will be able to stand in the way of reform efforts targeting federal civil asset forfeiture. As long as he's in charge, agencies under his control will continue to abuse an inherently-abusable process to separate people like the Sourovelis family from their property.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, attorney general, civil asset forfeiture, doj, donald trump, due process, jeff sessions, theft

Remember When The FBI & NYPD Told People To Upgrade Their iPhones To Enable Stronger Security?

from the because-it-helps-stop-crime dept

Look, let's face facts here. For all the talk coming from the law enforcement community that they need backdoors into encryption to stop crime, they absolutely know that the reverse is true: strong encryption prevents crime. Lots of it. Strong encryption on phones makes stealing those phones a lot less worthwhile, because all the information on them is locked up. As we noted back in 2014, the FBI had a webpage advocating for mobile encryption to protect your phone's data: Of course, after that started to look inconvenient for the FBI, they quietly removed that page. I have a FOIA request in asking why, but the FBI has told me I shouldn't expect an answer for another year or two.

But it's not just the FBI. Trevor Timm alerts us to the amazing fact that just a couple of years ago, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) was literally roaming the streets, giving people fliers telling them to upgrade their iPhones to enable greater security features to protect against crime. Michael Hoffman tweeted a picture of the flier he received:

Four uniformed NYPD officers were at my subway stop tonight asking me to upgrade to iOS 7. Not a joke! pic.twitter.com/CGdR2RqtKJ

— Michael Hoffman (@Hoffm) September 21, 2013

If you can't read the flier, it says:

PUBLIC AWARENESS NOTICE
ATTENTION APPLE USERS!!!! As of Wednesday, September 18, 2013 the new iOS7 software update available for your Apple product brings added security to your devices.

By downloading the new operating system, should your device be lost or stolen it cannot be reprogrammed without an Apple ID and Password.

The download is FREE from Apple.

In other words, law enforcement in NYC absolutely knows that stronger security on phones prevents crime. And yet, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is running around pretending that these phones have created a crime wave in NY?

And, it appears that the data absolutely supports what the FBI and the NYPD apparently used to know, but are now pretending to forget. An article last summer by Kevin Bankston, laid out the details, noting that phone theft is a massive epidemic, with criminals swiping millions of phones -- and many of them then seeking to get access to the data on those phones. While the introduction of remote kill switches has helped reduce some of that, encryption is a much better solution.

So what happened? Did the FBI and NYPD really "forget" everything they knew two and a half years ago about encryption and how it stops crime?

Filed Under: encryption, fbi, iphone, nypd, security, theft
Companies: apple

71% Of Americans Oppose Civil Asset Forfeiture. Too Bad Their Representatives Don't Care.

from the the-power-of-people,-bottlenecked dept

According to a YouGov/Huffington Post poll, 71% of Americans are opposed to civil asset forfeiture.

Too bad their opinion doesn't matter. This is part of the problem.


Most Americans haven't even heard of civil asset forfeiture. This is why the programs have run unchallenged for so many years. An uninformed electorate isn't a vehicle for change. This issue is still a long way away from critical mass.

Without critical mass, there's little chance those who profit from it will lose their power over state and federal legislatures. Forfeiture programs are under more scrutiny these days, but attempts to roll back these powers, or introduce conviction requirements, have been met with resistance from law enforcement agencies and police unions -- entities whose opinions are generally respected far more than the public's.

California's attempt to institute a conviction requirement met with pushback from a unified front of law enforcement groups. Despite nearly unanimous support by legislators, the bill didn't survive the law enforcement lobby's last-minute blitz. They also had assistance from the Department of Justice, which pointed out how much money agencies would be giving up by effectively cutting off their connection with federal agencies if the bill was passed.

Meanwhile, Michigan lawmakers have gathered unanimous support of asset forfeiture reform, but are not introducing a conviction requirement. This will make the bill more palatable for law enforcement, as it only raises the bar from a "preponderance of evidence" to "clear and convincing evidence" that seized property is linked to criminal activity. It would also make it a little easier for citizens to fight for the return of seized property if not charged with any crimes.

A reform bill introduced in Texas died an unceremonious death back in April when the committee chairman refused to move the legislation along until more concessions to law enforcement interests were made. The legislator who introduced the bill refused to budge and the bill was killed off.

Virginia's attempt to add a conviction requirement was similarly killed off by a legislative committee, despite nearly universal support from other legislators. The Senate Finance Committe claimed the State Crime Commission needed to examine the issue first, which will buy those opposed to reform at least another year to shore up their defenses.

Wyoming's governor vetoed an asset forfeiture reform bill, claiming the seizure of property without securing convictions was "important" and "right."

On the bright side, Montana and New Mexico have both enacted forfeiture reform. Montana introduced a conviction requirement and New Mexico went even further, eliminating civil asset forfeiture altogether. (Property can only be seized in criminal cases.)

But as for the rest of the nation, there has been little movement on asset forfeiture reform. Utah -- a state that overhauled its forfeiture system 15 years ago -- rolled those reforms back just as national scrutiny was increasing. A broader movement for reform seems unlikely when less than a third of the nation is even aware of these programs.

Even if awareness increases, legislators at the top end of the food chain are more interested in appeasing law enforcement agencies and prosecutors than pushing through reform bills that arrive on their desks with nearly unanimous support. Informing the electorate may put better people in office, but it won't change the mindset that almost always believes law enforcement knows best.

This problem is compounded when the law enforcement lobby starts complaining about the budgetary shortfalls reform efforts will create. If they aren't allowed to seize anything for any reason, they won't be able to buy the things they want or offset the costs generated by their seizure efforts. Any state strapped for cash -- and that's most of them -- will be hesitant to pick up the tab for "lost" revenue.

It all adds up to little forward motion. The public may be displeased with the status quo, but the status quo has paid off so much for so long, those with the power to motivate politicians won't be in any hurry to give up their forfeiture programs.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, asset seizure, civil asset forfeiture, doj, law enforcement, theft

Another Batch Of Baggage Handlers Accused Of Stealing From Luggage; Because Airport 'Security' Isn't

from the shopping-for-your-goods dept

Just last week I flew into JFK airport's terminal 4, and thankfully I only had carry-on luggage, because this morning I read that seven baggage handlers from JFK -- working in terminals 4 and 7 -- have been arrested for stealing stuff from people's luggage. And doing so without much fear of getting caught (even if they were, eventually):

According to the criminal complaints, between March 2012 and June 2014, the defendants stole Apple iPads, iPhones and MacBook computers; Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets; Dell, Toshiba and ASUS laptops; and other electronic items, as well as a pair of two-carat diamond-and-gold earrings. The complaint said the items were taken from passengers' checked luggage, and all but two of the defendants are alleged to have contacted a "fence," who actually was an undercover police officer.

The defendants named their prices, set up meetings on airport grounds or nearby, and even made promises about other items that they could steal, the complaint said.

Now, if this were a one time thing, it might not even be that noteworthy. But this seems like fairly common practice at airports. A few years ago, we wrote about TSA agents stealing iPads and stories of TSA agents and baggage handlers stealing stuff from luggage are not at all hard to find. In fact, reports from a few years ago noted that over 400 TSA employees have been fired for stealing from passnegers in the past decade.

And related stories are all over the place. Hell, back in March, another group of JFK baggage handlers were arrested. On nearly the same day, it looks like a similar theft ring involving baggage handlers at LAX was broken up. Even more recently, a similar theft ring at New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport. Amateur sleuths were needed to bust up a baggage handler theft ring in Charleston, South Carolina. A WSJ article from a few years ago details a long list of baggage handler thefts from a wide range of airports.

And it's not just baggage handlers, but the TSA itself, who (we're told) is supposed to be protecting us from bad people. Here's $8,500 stolen from a bag. Here's a TSA officer stealing a computer. Here's a TSA agent swiping $36 from a passenger. A few years ago, a convicted TSA agent, who admitted to stealing $800,000 from passengers at Newark Airport in New Jersey, spoke out about just how common theft was among the TSA:

"It was very commonplace, very," said Pythias Brown, a former TSA officer at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey who admits he stole more than $800,000 worth of items from luggage and security checkpoints over a four-year period.

"It was very convenient to steal," he said.

Speaking publicly for the first time after being released from prison, Brown told ABC News his four-year-long crime spree came to an end only because he tried to sell a camera he stole from the luggage of a CNN producer on E-bay but forgot to remove all of the news networks' identifying stickers.

"It became so easy, I got complacent," Brown said.

All of this should raise a variety of questions about airport security. We're told that these people are there to protect us, but it seems that they're not able to do that. At all. Hell, as Amy Alkon points out, if it's so damn easy to take stuff out of people's bags, you know it's pretty easy to put stuff in as well. And, of course, this has been going on for years. Many of those links above are more recent, but plenty are from years past and it doesn't seem like anything has changed very much. Airport "security" remains security theater at the best of times, but it's even worse when it's actually putting people at more risk.

Filed Under: airport security, baggage handlers, jfk, security, security theater, stealing, theft, tsa

Federal Prosecutor Claims That Copyright Infringement 'Discourages Smart People From Doing Innovative Things'

from the that's-the-well-thought-out-quote? dept

Just about two years ago, we wrote about the DOJ seizing three websites that were allegedly set up to let people download cracked versions of fee-based Android apps. As in the past, we were somewhat troubled by the government's willingness to seize websites without any form of adversarial hearing. As far as we can tell, such actions clearly violate the First Amendment as per the ruling in Fort Wayne Books v. Indiana. Either way, two years later, the government has finally gotten around to indicting some of the folks behind the three sites: Appbucket, Applanet and SnappzMarket. It's entirely possible that those indicted did break the law, though the fact that in all three cases the feds first got some of the other participants to take a plea deal in which they supply evidence against the others and that most of them were only charged with one or two counts on things like "conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement" suggests a fairly weak case. This is a DOJ that we're used to seeing pile on dozens of charges.

But, what caught my attention is the ridiculous rhetoric from the DOJ in announcing these indictments. The most bizarre and stupid line has to go to US Attorney Sally Quillian Yates of the Northern District of Georgia:

“Copyright infringement discourages smart people from doing innovative things,” said U.S. Attorney Yates. “This problem is especially acute when it comes to rapidly developing technologies, like apps for smart phones, and these defendants are now being held accountable for the intellectual property they stole.”

Note that this isn't just a random quote in an interview. This is the quote that Yates put in the press announcement, meaning that multiple people vetted this and thought it was appropriate. First off, I'm curious: which "smart people" have been "discouraged" from "doing innovative things" because of copyright infringement? Does Yates honestly believe that some brilliant app developer out there had an idea for an app and said... "nah, if I make that, people will just infringe, so screw it." There may be a reasonable argument that some developers may not make as much money as they otherwise might have -- and that leads to fewer resources to focus on development. But the idea that it scares people off from actually doing work is... simply not true.

And even if the statement were true, is that really the yardstick we want to measure things by? Because I can also show plenty of cases where copyright infringement has actually encouraged smart people to do innovative things. The creation of important peer to peer technology was built on the back of the desire of some to infringe. The amount of creative and innovative work based on infringement is pretty damn high. If we're going to get into a pissing contest over whether infringement inspires or discourages innovation, US Attorney Yates is going to lose badly. Very badly.

Also, what "intellectual property" did they "steal?" This is a US attorney, and as far as I can tell, none of the indictments involve anything relating to any statutes on theft. Furthermore, nothing seems to involve them taking the copyrights away from original owners. At most, it appears that these individuals set up sites for the sharing of infringing copies of apps. If you're talking about "theft" of "intellectual property" you kinda have to be talking about someone taking someone else's copyright (or patent or trademark), otherwise you're saying things that are simply inaccurate.

Next up, we have "Special Agent in Charge J. Britt Johnson of the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office."

“Today’s federal indictments are the direct result of an extensive and thorough federal investigation into three groups of individuals aggressively engaged in and profiting from the theft of intellectual property,” said Special Agent in Charge Johnson. “While copyright infringement is the direct theft of the hard work of others in the form of research and development expended, it can also negatively impact incentives for further or future development of those ideas or applications. The FBI will continue to provide significant investigative resources toward such groups engaged in such wholesale pirating or copyright violations as seen here.”

Copyright infringement is "the direct theft of the hard work of others." How do you "steal" the hard work of others? And where in the indictment is anything having to do with actual theft, rather than copyright infringement?

It's troubling that the DOJ seems to have taken the copyright industry's bogus language of "theft" and "stealing" and falsely applied it to issues related to infringement. Even if these individuals broke the law, you'd hope that the DOJ would at least accurately portray the indictment and charges against the individuals, rather than making plainly ridiculous claims. The problem, though, is that this is what happens after a generation of entertainment industry execs spew misleading garbage about how infringement is "theft." A bunch of DOJ folks who don't understand intellectual property just act as if this is the same thing, even though it isn't even close.

Filed Under: android, apps, britt johnson, copyright, criminal copyright, doj, domain seizures, fbi, sally quillian yates, theft
Companies: appbucket, applanet, snappzmarket

Frenchman Fined For 'Theft' And 'Fraudulent Retention' For Finding Health Docs Via A Google Search

from the le-cluelessness dept

The basic downloading tool Wget is much in the news at the moment, and here's another story where it plays a central role. The French blogger and activist Olivier Laurelli, also known by his Twitter name Bluetouff, was searching on Google for something else when he spotted an interesting link that turned out to lead to several gigabytes of internal documents held on the French National Agency for Food Safety, Environment, and Labor's extranet (ANSES in French). Ars Technica explains what happened next:

Laurelli merely used the Linux Wget tool to download all of the contents of the Web directory that he found. He left the files on his drive for a few days and then transferred them to his desktop for more convenient reading (which the French government would later spin as "the accused made backup copies of the documents he had stolen"). A few days later, Laurelli searched through the documents he downloaded and sent some to a fellow … writer [on the activist news site Reflets.info], Yovan Menkevick. About two weeks later, a few interesting scientific slides pertaining to nano-substances from the cache were published on Laurelli's site.

When ANSES discovered this, it reported what it called "potential intrusion" and "data theft" to the police. Then France's Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (DCRI in French) became involved. The lower court that heard the case decided Laurelli should not be punished for accessing data that was not secure; ANSES was happy to let it go at that, but DCRI appealed.

It was clear that things would not go well in the appeals court when the presiding judge seemed not to know even how to pronounce "Google " or "login" -- he said "Googluh" and "lojin" (original in French.) The prosecutor was just as bad: he started off his speech by admitting "I didn't even understand half the terms I heard today." Ars Technica reports the denouement of this high-tech French farce as follows:

The appeals court acquitted Laurelli of fraudulently accessing an information system but saw fit to convict Bluetouff of theft of documents and fraudulent retention of information. The court wrote: "It is well demonstrated that he was conscious of his irregular retention in automated data processing, accessed where he downloaded protected evidence; and that investigations have shown that these data had been downloaded before being... disseminated to others; that it is, in any event, established that Olivier Laurelli made copies of computer files inaccessible to the public for personal use without the knowledge and against the will of its owner"

Leaving aside the fact that the appeals court was clearly ill-equipped to understand the technical issues involved, and that the original files were completely unprotected and found by Google's crawler, not Laurelli, there is another disquieting aspect to this affair. Alongside his writing and activism, Laurelli also runs a small computer security company. One of the services it offers is a standard VPN. He was using this VPN service when he accessed the ANSES site, and the fact that his connection was routed via Panama -- the VPN's exit node -- counted heavily against him, he believes:

"This VPN (in fact above all this Panamanian IP address) is probably one of the strongest elements which had driven the prosecution to pursue a criminal case," he wrote.

VPNs represent one of the few tools available to ordinary Internet users to help them bolster their security and privacy against global surveillance. It's deeply troubling that the mere fact of using a VPN to access a Web site was apparently viewed by the court as evidence of criminal intent, rather than simply good online practice in the post-Snowden world.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: anses, bluetouff, documents, france, liability, olivier laurelli, retention, search, security, theft, wget

Music Industry Paper With '50 Years' At The 'Forefront' Of The Business Details Sentencing Of 'Copyright Thief'

from the we've-made-it-50-years-without-an-editor-and-we're-doing-just-fine dept

I'm not in any hurry to call out the average person for the abuse of IP terminology. For many people, a copyright is a trademark is a patent. It all means a way of legally stating "I made this." But they're certainly not interchangeable terms, especially not when you're in the business of reporting on developments in IP-related cases. AFP, the world's third-largest newspaper, did exactly that while reporting on Kim Dotcom's threatened patent lawsuit earlier this year, claiming the Mega man was suing Google and others for copyright infringement.

A regrettable mistake to be sure. Even if the article was farmed out to a low-level staffer, it still behooves the news agency to ensure its writers do a minimum of fact-checking when using unfamiliar terminology. Regrettable, almost forgivable, but still disappointing.

What we have in front of us today is inexcusable. MusicWeek, an industry paper with "50 years" experience at the "forefront of the music business" under its belt, recently delivered this dumbfounding headline.

Copyright thief given 18-month prison sentence

For (what assuredly won't be) the last time, you can't steal copyright. You can infringe, but you can't steal. And when people use the word "theft" in these situations, they're usually referring to infringing copies of content, not copyright itself. (Also: infringement isn't theft, no matter how much the MPAA's lawyers wish it to be...) MusicNews has dumped out a headline that makes it appear as though the perp somehow hacked copyright registrations in order to list himself as the rights holder.

The article does go on to use the correct terminology (copyright infringement) but that's only because it's copying from a sentencing report -- and only after it repeats its claim of "copyright theft."

A man who was found to be in possession of one of the largest hauls of hi-tech equipment for use in copyright theft ever found in the UK has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.

The sentence was handed to 52-year-old Keith Tamkin from Bognor yesterday (December 3) after previously pleading guilty to six offences - one offence of distributing articles infringing copyright, two of money laundering a total of £140,000, one of transferring criminal property - a computer - and two of possessing prohibited weapons – a pepper spray and a stun gun.

So, as is cleared up later in the article, this was a counterfeiting operation. Tamkin burned games, movies and music to blank discs as one of (apparently) several criminal activities. The rest of the article is filled with statements from BPI (the UK's RIAA) and the Sussex police, congratulating each other on their fine work in shutting down Tamkin.

Tamkin's shuttered operation proves that people will still pay money for content, contrary to industry claims. (The laundering money charge suggests Tamkin wasn't doing this for free.) It just appears pricing is still an issue.

But returning to the original thrust of this post -- using terminology this poorly isn't excusable for an AFP intern, much less an industry-focused publication. I realize entities like the RIAA and MPAA would prefer to use the term "theft" rather than "infringement," but this desire shouldn't be indulged by reporters covering these industries. Using the industries' favored terminology to cobble together such a broken and nonsensical headline is inexcusable and it does no favors to the site publishing it or the industries it's trying to serve.

Filed Under: copyright, journalism, theft