An appeal for support of the plight of US online gambling sites facing persecution by the US government

December 22, 2011 — xanthippa

At times, I come accross interesting information on topics on which I do not consider myself qualified to comment on.  The situation faced by online gambling sites in the USA and the actions of the US government in this ‘legal gray a area’ falls into this category.

However, as I have written about various abuses of government authority, especially in the areas concerning the internet and electronic privacy, I have privately received an article about this topic from PokerCanada with a request to publish it. Without making a judgment on this specific situation one way or another, I present it to you for your consideration:

Description: The government’s war on online poker rages on, with a legal maze of regulations to hit online poker providers hard.

It’s been a tough few years for the world of American online poker. With some of biggest US sites having been seized by the FBI, it would appear that the government sure has made a pretty penny on what online poker fans see as a great loss.

The United States Department of Justice have been cracking down on online poker since 2006, but this vendetta really hit the headlines in April of this year when US investigators shut down and charged three of the biggest and best online poker websites in the world: Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and PokerStars. Not only were the founders of these 3 online poker giants said to be facing a whopping 20 years in jail if they were found guilty to be in breach of US money laundering and anti-gambling law, but they were all ordered to repay $3 billion to cover the “illegal gambling profits”. The US Department of Justice also allege that these companies masqueraded the money earned from U.S. poker players as payments of jewellery and golf balls.

The fact that these online poker sites were hit so very hard with such a massive fee sparked online poker fans worldwide to be extremely suspicious of this battle on online gambling suppliers. Take the crackdown of the Wachovia Bank for example. Though alleged to be involved in a serious drug-smuggling ring, they were fined only $160 million. This may very well be due to the government’s attitude regarding online gambling rather than a ploy to make titanic amounts of money, but online gambling fans tend not to see it this way.

However, while some online poker sites have been seized by the FBI, legislation surrounding online gambling is still very much of a “grey area”, and fans of the 3 aforementioned online poker venues remain strangely optimistic. They believe that their poker favourites will beat the charges and business will continue as normal. Understandable, considering Full Tilt Poker expect to be cleared of all charges, with PokerStars conveying the same optimistic attitude. The fact remains that there is a LOT of legal tape surrounding gambling in the US and indeed Canada, so even if these online poker giants do have all charges against them dropped, they will need to adhere to the government’s labyrinth of rules and regulations.

Posted in technology. Tags: , , . 1 Comment »

An urgent appeal from OpenMedia

December 20, 2011 — xanthippa

This is an urgent appeal from OpenMedia – I am forwarding it on to you for your consideration:

We only have 24 hours until key matching support ends. Please sign up now to avoid missing this opportunity.

Become a monthly donor in the next 24 hours and indie ISP Distributel and domain registrar Hover will double your contribution every single month in 2012. Even contributing $3 will make a huge difference. We can’t stress enough how crucial your participation is in sustaining our work fighting for an open and affordable Internet.

Please join us today before this generous matching funds offer ends.

In case you need another nudge, here’s what one of you said in our survey:

“The team at OpenMedia does fantastic work and together we can achieve our goals of keeping the internet affordable and surveillance free…I am proud to be a current and continuing supporter of OpenMedia’s efforts…Our country is entering a very dangerous time and I feel that OpenMedia’s efforts, along with the efforts of supporters and the public, are key to protecting our democracy and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Together, we stopped the government in their tracks on two key decisions this year: allowing Big Telecom more complete control over Internet pricing in Canada, and including a new online spying scheme in a package of crime reforms. But we’ve received word that lobbyists are working overtime through closed-door meetings to make the Internet more restricted and expensive.

Don’t let them undo the progress we’ve made this year. Take this last chance to have your contributions doubled.

With hope,

Steve, Reilly, Lindsey & Shea

P.S. Join our allies program today and you’ll get to see under the hood of one the most vibrant movements in the country. Join us: http://openmedia.ca/allies

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In defense of CarrierIQ

December 13, 2011 — xanthippa

Over the last month or two, I have been highly critical of CarrierIQ and the sneaky way they gather smart-phone user information without informing the user they are doing so, much less providing an opt-out choice.

CarrierIQ has taken a lot of heat from a lot of places over this.  Now, they are defending themselves:  in the name of fairness, I think it is important to bring this defense to your attention.

The full document can be read here.

In the first few lines. they thank Trevor Eckhart for “for sharing his findings with us”.  That is quite a change from their initial response, when they threatened to sue him if he continued to expose their practices…until the Electronic Frontier Foundation stood up for him, that is.  It’s nice to see that, deep down inside, they are really swell guys and gals who care…

Reading ‘between the lines’, here are a few excerpts from CarrierIQ’s statement:

“…Carrier IQ software automatically passes the hardware serial number and the subscriber serial number (e.g. IMEI/IMSI) to the Network Operator who can then match to their customer records…”

i.e.  CarrierIQ matches the phone and user information in their database, making it possible to identify individual user’s phone habits as opposed to just collecting  ‘anonymous operational data’ that could be used to analyze network performance without compromising user privacy.

*   *   *

“Q. “Why is my battery only lasting 3 hours and my phone keeps crashing?”

 A. Because you have loaded a new application abcxyz and this is draining the battery quickly and making your phone unstable.”

i.e. CarrierIQ monitors what applications are on your phone.

*   *   *

“Q. “Why does my phone drop calls when I drive on Interstate 80?”

 A. It looks like you were dropping calls between exit 34 and exit 35 and we are upgrading our towers to improve performance at that section of the highway.”

i.e.  CarrierIQ records your location with respect to phone usage.

*   *   *

“The Carrier IQ software installed on the mobile device is called the IQ Agent.

. . .

The IQ Agent has been implemented on feature phones, smart phones, data modems and tablets.”

Nice to know…  I guess I’ll pass on that tablet computer and put my IT guys to hacking the modem:  if it is doing what the smart phones are doing, it’s time for a jail-break!

*   *   *

“In typical deployments, the IQ Agent uploads diagnostic data once per day, at a time when the device is not being used.

. . .

Network Operators who are Carrier IQ customers do not charge consumers for this upload nor does it show up as usage of consumer data plans.”

In other words, you are not given any clue that one corporation is beaming data from your phone or tablet and selling it to another corporation.  Nice!

Well, at least they don’t make you pay for it…

*    *    *

” [Preload] version of the IQ Agent cannot typically be deleted by an end user but only gathers and forwards metrics from the device if it is enabled with a profile …”

My emphasis.

*   *   *

“Network Operators typically prefer the embedded version of the software as it provides the most comprehensive diagnostic set. This embedded information is used to understand which control signals are passed between the mobile device and the handset…”

Again, the emphasis is mine.

*   *   *

I think this ought to be sufficient for a Q.E.D. – but the document goes on:

“Network Operators and handset manufacturers determine whether and how they deploy Carrier IQ software and what metrics that software will gather and forward to the Network Operator.”

Translation:  “All of your data is belongs to us, you puny little humans!  Mu-ha-haaaaa!!!!!”  

OK, let’s not go overboard here.

Let’s be fair!

Carrier IQ suggests that they themselves do not make the call about just how much data to collect about you – they will only collect and pass on the data which their customers, the Network Operators and handset manufacturers, will pay them to collect about you! 

Mu-ha-haaaaa!!!!!

*   *   *

“An embedded version of the IQ Agent cannot be deleted by consumers through any method provided by Carrier IQ.”

Is there an echo in here?  Mu-ha-haaaaa!!!!

*   *   *

“A new profile can be downloaded to a mobile device when it periodically checks-in with the network server. After receiving the new profile from the network server, the device will begin gathering the metrics and pre-processing according to these instructions.”

Translation:  you complain – we’ll ferret out your secrets!

*   *   *

And that is just the first half of the document…

In the rest of the document, to the best of my reading, they assure us they are working on a ‘fix’ that would make it less possible for us to find and remove the IQ Agent, they admit to (at times) collecting SMS messages (but that was a mistake and they don’t do it any more), collecting phone call data, URL information, collecting keystroke data (but only under ‘specific conditions’ and when the ‘collector’ wants it – not for themselves, not at all….plus it’s not ‘on purpose’, just a by-product of other functions), and so on.

And then there is IQ Insight…  This is the bit that collects all the location information:  letting ‘operators’ to really drill down through your data!

Oh – and they say they only sell your information once…

But, don’t take my word for it:  I am sure my reading of this document is highly flawed and imperfect, as what they say in their ‘conclusion’ does not, in my never-humble-opinion, match up fully with what they say in the body of the text.  Obviously, it must be my understanding which is flawed.

It would be much better if you were to read the document for yourself and form your own opinion about CarrierIQ’s most illuminating explanations.

And, if these do not send you screaming for a throw-away phone, I have this lovely medieval bridge in Prague I’d love to sell you!

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FOI request for FBI use of data secretly collected from smart phones: denied!

December 13, 2011 — xanthippa

A while back, I  posted about CarrierIQ and its ‘rootkit of all evil’.

In it are links which demonstrate how CarrierIQ has embedded code into smart phones which runs in the background and is not easily accessible to the phone’s user (with no notification to the user that it is running, much less choices to ‘opt out’).  This code records everything the phone is used for and reports this information back to CarrierIQ – even if the user is not in any contract with the company, or has indeed ever heard of its existence.  This information contains:

  • GPS information
  • incoming and outgoing phone calls
  • details of internet access and use, including encrypted data (like passwords)
  • all keystroke information

In another post, I have written about INDECT:  the EU’s proposed regime of continuous surveillance of member states’ citizenry for the purpose of identifying ‘unusual behaviour’, which would then be brought to the attention of police for ‘follow up’.  ‘Unusual behaviour’ would include (but not be limited to):

  • lingering too long in public areas
  • abnormal transit system use
  • internet habits that include visiting potentially ‘antisocial websites’
  • associating with ‘antisocial elements’
  • abnormal shopping habits

(In that post, I also provide a link to an article about CarrierIQ’s attempt to silence the researcher who first published information about its surveillance practices.)

The potential for abuse is so strong, it is difficult to overstate it…it seems that, increasingly, legislation is being drafted and passed all around the world not to safeguard against it, but to take advantage of it.

Here is an analysis (by a lawyer) of SOPA, just one such proposed pieces of legislation (in the USA) and the ways in which it breaches the constitution.

But if you are still not convinced that police agencies are warrantlessly accessing vast amounts of private data collected about citizens without their permission or knowledge, here is another piece of information you should consider:

‘A recent FOIA request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for “manuals, documents or other written guidance used to access or analyze data gathered by programs developed or deployed by Carrier IQ” was met with a telling denial. In it, the FBI stated it did have responsive documents – but they were exempt under a provision that covers materials that, if disclosed, might reasonably interfere with an ongoing investigation.’

Indeed.

Our constitutions were written with the specific purpose of protecting the civil rights of citizens from their governments.  Most of us have forgotten this:  and our governments are increasingly passing laws which circumvent (if not directly breech) our unalienable rights which all written constitutions (starting with the Magna Carta) are but imperfect expressions of.

We need to wake up and oppose this passive tolerance of the increasingly corrupt and oppressive surveillance society – before it is too late!

H/T:  Tyr

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Have you heard about INDECT?

December 5, 2011 — xanthippa

If you haven’t heard about INDECT ( Intelligent Information System Supporting Observation, Searching and Detection for Security of Citizens in Urban Environment), you are not alone – especially if you are on this side of the pond.

Or you might have heard of it and dismissed it as some sort of a paranoid conspiracy theory…which is exactly what some, including Wikipedia, imply it to be.

On the other hand, WikiLeaks takes it deadly seriously.  As does European Digital Rights (EDRI).

If you happen to be unaware that items like phones send constant streams of information about you – including installing a hidden keylogger – back to corporations you may have no commercial relationship with, here is an article with a video that shows, step-by-step, how this is being done. (Yes, when this information was first published, CarrierIQ tried to shut the source up with threats of lawsuits.)

And just to help you relax when you bring home a new video-game console…consider their enhanced sensory abilities (lip-reading, facial expression analysis to measure emotional states, enhanced speech recognition) in conjunction with the ‘back doors’ being built in to so many of our digital devices.

But, I digress…

The EU is planning to gather information about its citizens from ‘open sources’ (social media, chat-rooms, blogs) as well as public surveillance systems (like CCTV cameras to the GPS devices that they wish to legislate to be mandatory in every vehicle in order to ‘monitor traffic patterns’), their surfing habits, their shopping habits (remember all those ‘loyalty cards’?), to all other policing methods.  Then they plan to run this mass of data through some algorithms which will analyze the language used by specific citizens with their public behaviours (say, like sitting in a public place for longer than ‘normal’) and online preferences, cross-reference it all and come up with ‘automated dossiers’ which will alert police officers to go check out specific citizens deemed to have ‘abnormal behaviour’.

All this is to be done by an arms-lenght (translation:  completely unaccountable) agency which is as transparent as tar, overseen by a police-agency dominated board.  As this agency is an EU creature, all the member states would be compelled to give it full access to citizen information, from financial to DNA databases.

Of course, we know this is the direction our society is moving in – but I suspect most of us have not been aware of the degree to which this has already been happening and just how lacking we are in any privacy rights.

Perhaps we ought to pay more attention…

H/T:  HackerNews

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

OpenMedia.ca: You and half-a-million Canadians changed the internet

November 16, 2011 — xanthippa

Today, I received  this email from OpenMedia.ca:

This is what we’ve been waiting for. Together we’ve stopped Big Telecom’s plan to impose usage-based billing (Internet metering) on all Canadians. Big phone and cable companies tried to rig the market but they were caught red-handed.

A year ago the CRTC decided that big telecom giants could force their small competitors to adopt metered billing. This would have killed Big Telecom’s independent competitors, and it would have meant a more expensive and controlled Internet for all Canadians. It was this outrageous move that led OpenMedia.ca to launch the now half-a-million strong Stop The Meter petition that forced the CRTC to reconsider their plan.

Yesterday, finally, the CRTC pulled back from its mandatory metered billing decision. This decision won’t stop all big telecom metering, but it could provide a much needed unlimited, independent option for many Canadians. It is truly rare for people to outmaneuver Big Telecom lobbyists, but together, we did it. Thank you for playing a crucial part in safeguarding the affordable Internet.

We changed the foundation of Internet billing in Canada—that’s a game changer—but we’re concerned that uncompetitive pricing may be buried in the pages of the policy that the CRTC released yesterday. We’ll study the details of this decision closely in the coming days and, with your help, take whatever action is necessary to push for fair pricing.

What’s next?

We held the line on Internet affordability and prevented Big Telecom from taking complete control, but they still dominate about 94% of the Internet service market. This is why Canada is still falling behind the rest of the world on speed, pricing, and (as we all know) customer service.

Big Telecom makes record profits while Canadians are overcharged and disrespected. Those profits are then used to lobby for more control and price-gouging. Now more than ever we need to break this cycle.

The only thing Big Telecom companies understand is their bottom line, so let’s hit them where it hurts. Let’s get as many Canadians as possible to switch to an independent provider.

Here’s what you can do now:

Here’s the plan:

 Get the CRTC to allow indie ISPs to offer an unmetered Internet.

 A wave of Canadians cancel their service with Big Telecom, and subscribe to an independent competitor—delivering a swift financial cannon shot directly at Big Telecom’s lobbying budget.

 Businesses, civil society groups, and people across Canada work with policy-makers to fix our broken telecom system once and for all.

By pledging to make the switch, you’ll send a clear message to policy-makers that all Canadians want independent choices for Internet service.

We’ll let Prime Minister Harper and Industry Minister Paradis know how many Canadians have made this pledge.

As an active member of the pro-Internet community, your participation is key.

For our digital future,

Steve, Lindsey, and the OpenMedia.ca Team

P.S. The CRTC’s decision yesterday is likely to meet an aggressive reaction from Big Telecom. Let’s push forward for Internet openness and affordability now, while they’re still reeling from our success. Let’s get moving! Pledge to switch today.

Posted in freedoms, society, technology. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »

Informed Canadians Oppose Online Spying

October 28, 2011 — xanthippa

Do you think it is a good idea for police to be allowed to listen to phone calls without getting a warrant first?

That is exactly what the Harper Conservatives are proposing to imbed into our Criminal Code.

We should all oppose this – especially as more of use use VOIP and as our cars and smart meters are constantly recording bucketloads of information about us.

Arm yourself – get informed!!!

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Thoughts about ‘Anonymous’ and the #occupy protests

October 21, 2011 — xanthippa

Why is ‘Anonymous’ so much on my ‘radar’ now?

Couple of reasons…

They are, well, enigmatic…  When a big company picks on little guys – and this appears on their radar – they kick but.  Their aims are altruistic – perhaps idealistic – at least for now.  And they are big-time fans of freedom of speech!

They are techies who are kicking some slick behinds – you have GOT to love that!  (OK, I am indulging in a bit of tribalism here – even if the ‘tribe’ is diffuse and I don’t know them personally. I suspect that most of the people behind Anonymous are Aspies or have strong Aspie tendencies:  they are, after all, techies.  And I like to think that I am rather good at playing ‘spot the Aspie’.  The rules they pick and the way they adhere to them:  very Aspie-like…)

We are still full of the #occupy news….and Anonymous was there first.  No, I don’t think that the majority of people who are there now are in any way connected to Anonymous, but, please, consider the following:

  • before anything happened, Anonymous announced the protests and said to look for them there, on Wall St.
  • when the occupation of Wall St. first started, there was an almost complete news blackout on it
  • Anonymous had hacked into some local CCTV cameras and streamed the signal – that was, at the very beginning, the ONLY coverage of the event
  • then, as time went on, the professional protesters and their media henchmen began to trickle in…and Anonymous disappeared from the picture…
  • now, the protests are creatures of the professional protesters and the big money behind them – including semi-official backing by the US President and his minions, with absolutely no role played by Anonymous (that I can discern)

It is not a coincidence that the vast majority of the people protesting in the #occupy movement have no idea what they want to accomplish with this protest:  it is not a ‘regular’ protest of the sort where people want to accomplish a specific goal, analyze the approaches to achieving this goal and then choose protesting as their tool.  Rather, I suspect, this may have been a bit of an experiment…

…an experiment to see IF Anonymous can harness the power of the professional protest organizers when they need to – and to get an idea of how it would play out.

…an experiment to see how ‘neurotypicals’ (non-techies/non-Aspies) would react and behave, to gage their intelligence, initiative and individuality – or lack thereof in this type of a situation.  How soon and how deeply would ‘mob mentallity’ set in?

…an experiment to see whether ‘if we build it, they will come’ would work with protests.

Recently, when an Islamist group doc-dropped/outed Thunderf00t and his family members and threatened them by urging ‘all Muslims to do their duty’ because he dares to criticize Islam (he criticizes all irrational belief systems – systematically and effectively), Thunderf00t dropped the name of Anonymous as his protectors….and potential avengers!

Which got me thinking:  this is not the first time Thunderf00t has talked about Anonymous in his videos.  So, I went back and looked through his earliest material.  Here it is:

Interesting, is it not?

But there is more here, here, here, here (note the Guy Fawkes mask in the background) and here.

Not just in what Thunderf00t says – and how he says it, but also in how fascinated Anonymous is by Scientology.  Remember how, a few years back, they tried to build some sort of a movement against that cult?  I wonder if this is an indication of their fascination in how brainwashed neurotypical behave in groups … or the source of this fascination.

Don’t get me wrong – I do not think Anonymous has bad intentions.  I rather suspect that they are attempting to figure out how to help neurotypicals help themselves from self-imposed servitude (if this was not a full fledged attempt of its own to get them to help themselves).

But experiments/projects can go wrong – and more people than just Anonymous are keenly watching this and taking notes.

Posted in Aspergers, freedoms, human nature, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 14 Comments »

Europe v. Facebook

October 19, 2011 — xanthippa

Blarney…

Facebook:  all your data are belong to us!

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The Fourniers will set another Canadian legal precedent

October 12, 2011 — xanthippa

It is the nature of laws – at least, in free societies – to be passed in response to new developments in society.  That is why, in the common law tradition, legal precedents affect not only how old laws are applied but also how new laws evolve.

This creates a feedback mechanism:  the laws affect how the rules of society evolve, the rules of society affect how the laws evolve.

Currently, the courts are trying to interpret the existing laws to accommodate the changes due to our ‘communications revolution’.  Since more and more of our public and private communication as well as our public and private information is online, the impact these ruling will have over the coming decades is truly profound.

This makes Connie and Mark Fournier’s ongoing legal battles very important to all of us:  if you are reading this on a computer, then the rulings in their legal battles will affect the rules under which you live your life.  And not just in Canada – the world is fast becoming one electronic family and slowly but surely, internet-affecting legal precedents set in one Western country reverberate in the whole world.

That is why I have started to document the Fourniers’ legal journey – even though I have no legal training and my understanding of what is being said in court is imperfect.  But, if I document it to the best of my ability, perhaps others who are more knowledgable will be able to comment  on what I have witnessed and explain it better to all of us!

Last week, the Fourniers were in Federal court in Ottawa – charged with copyright infringement by Richard Warman.

To my mind, some of the things the Fourniers are charged with are difficult to understand – but one of them is very clear and will very likely set the legal precedent for Canada on a very hot topic: ‘inline linking’.  The legal precedent on copyright issues regarding the insertion of an inline web link has been ruled by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, clarifying that inserting them does not violate US copyright laws.  For search engines, anyway…

There has not been a comparable ruling in Canada – yet.

Richard Warman has brought a lawsuit against the Fourniers for violating his copyright in 3 separate ways.

One – and, perhaps most important regarding the abovementioned legal precedent – is for having permitted the insertion of an ‘inline-link’ on the Free Dominion forum they operate which linked to a picture of Richard Warman, on his own website.

In other words, the picture was always posted only on Richard Warman’s own personal website and he had full control over it.  An inline-link was posted on Free Dominion which would show the reader Richard Warman’s picture from Richard Warman’s site.  The picture was, at all times, on Mr. Warman’s server and under his complete control – he could have, at any time, blocked inline-linking to the picture…yet he chose to permit inline-links to the picture to function.

Inserting the inline-link on Free Dominion, according to Mr. Warman’s claim, constitutes displaying his image without permission and thus infringes on his copyright.

Therefore, the ruling on this will have important implications for internet use in Canada, perhaps further.  Should the ruling go against the Fourniers, then any time anyone inserts a hot-link when they comment on something on a blog or site you control, you could be liable for copyright infringement.

The other two counts of copyright infringment Mr. Warman is suing the Fourniers for are regarding words, not images, and words which were posted on the Free Dominion site and not words that were simply linked to.

Jonathan Kay had written an article for National Post in which documented how, at various court hearings, it was revealed that Mr. Warman appears to have made some highly inflammatory racist, misogynistic and anti-immigrant comments (specifically targeting Senator Anne Cools) on a white supremacist website/forum.  (I myself have heard the same assertions during the ‘Vigna v Levant’ defamation hearing, where Mr. Levant had clarified that to the best of his knowledge, it was not Mr. Vigna but rather Mr. Warman who was the card-carrying member of a neo-nazi organization and the author of this most vile hate speech directed against our first black female Senator.)

This newspaper article was re-printed (with credit – but it was not stated during the hearing if fully or partially) on the Free Dominion forum.

Mr. Warman sued the National Post for publishing that article and the National Post and he reached an out-of-court settlement with them.  As part of this settlement, Mr. Warman got the copyright of the article.

Once he owned the rights to the article, Mr. Warman’s lawyers contacted the Fourniers and demanded that they remove the article from their website.  This they complied with immediately, as was confirmed by Mr. Warman’s lawyers.

Despite this, at some subsequent time, the Fourniers were contacted by Mr. Warman’s lawyers and were requested to pay some sum of money to Mr. Warman to avoid a lawsuit for having posted the article in the first place.  The Fourniers believed that they had complied with the request to remove the offensive material in a timely manner and therefore did not think they were obligated to pay any money as well.  Subsequently, Richard Warman filed a copyright violation lawsuit against them on these grounds.

The last, third count of copyright violation has me puzzled more than the previous two.

The Fourniers had posted on Free Dominion sections of court documents – public documents, to the best of my knowledge – which had contained the phrases on the basis of which Mr. Warman was taking legal action against someone (the phrases he had found offensive) which had also been published in the article from point two.  Even though the Fourniers had clearly published these phrases as part of a public document, as they were also part of the article which Mr. Warman’s lawyers asked them to take down, Mr. Warman had charged them with copyright infringement for having posted them.

This, in a nutshell, is the background to this particular lawsuit Mr. Warman is pursuing against the Fourniers.

The Fourniers had filed their defense statement with the court – representing themselves.  Mr. Warman’s lawyers had informed the Fourniers that some of the things which they listed in their documents were inadmissible in court and asked the Fourniers to remove them.  The Fourniers refused to do so, because they believe this information to be relevant to their defense and would like the judge in the case to be the one to decide what is admissible and what is not.

Mr. Warman’s lawyers then filed a motion to have parts of the Fourniers defence statements struck from the record (not all the bits they had originally wanted removed, but still a significant amount)- something the Fourniers believe will affect their defense not only in this copyright violation lawsuit but also in three additional lawsuits (for defamation, I believe) that Mr. Warman is pursuing against them.

Last week, there was a hearing in federal court for this motion – a most interesting event in its own right (which I had gone to see for myself and will write up very, very soon, I promise!).

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »
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