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Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Wikinews extended invitations by e-mail on March 23 to multiple candidates running in the Texas’ 6th congressional district special election of May 1 to fill a vacancy left upon the death of Republican congressman Ron Wright. Of them, the office of Democrat Daryl Eddings, Sr. agreed to answer some questions by phone March 30 about their campaigns and policies. The following is the interview with Ms Chatham on behalf of Mr Eddings, Sr.

Eddings is a federal law enforcement officer and senior non-commissioned officer in the US military. His experience as operations officer of an aviation unit in the California National Guard includes working in Los Angeles to control riots sparked by the O. J. Simpson murder case and the police handling of Rodney King, working with drug interdiction teams in Panama and Central America and fighting in the Middle East. He is the founder of Operation Battle Buddy, which has under his leadership kept in touch with over 20 thousand veterans and their families. He was born in California, but moved to Midlothian, Texas. He endeavours to bring “good government, not no government”. Campaign manager Faith Chatham spoke to Wikinews on matters ranging from healthcare to housing.

An Inside Elections poll published on March 18 shows Republican candidate Susan Wright, the widow of Ron Wright, is ahead by 21% followed by Democrat Jana Sanchez with 17% and Republican Jake Ellzey with 8% with a 4.6% margin of error among 450 likely voters. The district is considered “lean Republican” by Inside Elections and voted 51% in favour of Donald Trump in last year’s US presidential election. This is down from 54% for Trump in 2016’s presidential election, the same poll stated.

Friday, March 14, 2014

Tony Benn, British Labour Party politician and left-wing campaigner, died this morning at his home in west London at age 88. Benn’s health had been declining since a stroke left him hospitalized in 2012.

Benn’s father and both grandfathers were MPs (Members of Parliament) in the Liberal party; his father defected to Labour and became a Cabinet Minister. Benn grew up in London and was a pupil at Westminster School before studying politics, philosophy and economics at New College, Oxford. During World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force for two years, then went back to Oxford to finish his studies. He worked as a BBC radio producer.

Tony Benn became an MP in November of 1950 and was a member of the cabinets of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. In 1981, Benn ran for deputy leadership of the Labour Party but lost. He also had a role in shaping the 1983 Labour manifesto. He went on to become a diarist and speaker, as well as joining in the anti-war movement and speaking out strongly against the Iraq war. The Sun newspaper once referred to him as “the most dangerous man in Britain” because of his strong left-wing political views.

Benn’s son Hilary also joined Labour and is an MP for Leeds Central. He distanced himself from his father’s views by saying he was “a Benn, not a Bennite”.

Benn’s children released a statement following his passing: “We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to all the NHS [National Health Service] staff and carers who have looked after him with such kindness in hospital and at home. We will miss above all his love which has sustained us throughout our lives. But we are comforted by the memory of his long, full and inspiring life and so proud of his devotion to helping others as he sought to change the world for the better.”

Labour leader Ed Miliband said Benn was an “iconic figure of our age”, “a champion of the powerless, a great parliamentarian and a conviction politician”. David Cameron said on Twitter: “Tony Benn was a magnificent writer, speaker and campaigner. There was never a dull moment listening to him, even if you disagreed with him.”

Monday, September 8, 2008

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a rights group called the American Rights Counsel LLC has attempted to have at least 4,000 anti-Scientology videos removed from the video sharing website YouTube. Upon further investigation, Wikinews found that most videos and clips were added to YouTube by the copyright holders of the material; as DMCA requests are for the purposes of requesting removal where service providers host material that infringe on the copyright of the complainant, the merit of these requests remain questionable. It was also discovered that the alleged rights group does not exist as a physical entity. In an in-depth report, Wikinews investigated the incident and obtained exclusive information and comments from individuals, including XenuTV producer Mark Bunker.

Within the past 24 hours, according to the EFF, the Counsel “sent out over 4000 DMCA takedown notices to YouTube, all making copyright infringement claims against videos with content critical of the Church of Scientology.” A DMCA notice, or Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice means an attempt to limit the use of copyrighted material that is often infringing on the rights of an alleged copyright.

Wikinews made attempts to contact American Rights Counsel LLC for comment on the take-down notices, but was unable to obtain contact details for the alleged organisation. One post on a YouTube discussion page related to the organization states that they “do not appear to exist outside of these claims on YouTube.” Wikinews contacted YouTube several times asking them if they have a process of verifying DMCA requests from individuals or entities claiming copyright infringement, but when they responded, they directed Wikinews to their terms of service saying, “item 8 addresses the DMCA and 8 B addresses counter-notice procedures.”

YouTube’s terms of use in regards to filing DMCA requests states that only “A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed” can make such claims. It also goes on to say, “Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site.”

The EFF says the videos attempting to be removed had shown clips from Anonymous protests of the Church and news footage from Australia and Germany which were critical of Scientology. Some videos were also messages from Anonymous to Scientology, and vice versa. Others were also video clips from a City Commission meeting in Clearwater, Florida. Accounts hosting the material were “suspended by YouTube in response to multiple allegations of copyright infringement.”

YouTube does, however, have a process for users that wish to file a counter-notice against a take-down under the DMCA. After the DMCA notices were sent, YouTube users began to revolt, by sending “DMCA counter-notices” to YouTube. The EFF states that the counter attack resulted in many of the accounts being reinstated and their videos restored.

One user claimed that he had shot and uploaded one of the videos that was taken down. “How can someone else file a claim against a video I MADE?,” said ShadowVsScientology, one of the YouTube users who had a video deleted. Since he owned the rights to the video, he alleges that the American Rights Counsel had no legal grounds to request its removal.

A video posted on YouTube by a user called ‘Church0fScientology’, who was responsible for the original ‘Message to Scientology’ in January of 2008 created after the Church had a video of a Tom Cruise interview removed from the site, states that the organization responsible for the DMCAs does not exist and is run by a man named Dr. Oliver Schaper. They state that he “fronts” the organization for Scientology. It also calls Schaper’s actions “deceptive”. Schaper also had an account on YouTube which has since been suspended. Wikinews obtained a cached version of his account page in which he states to the group Anonymous, “I respect your efforts as long your efforts remain within the limits of the law and remain fair. Although I don’t censor any postings, I would appreciate if any conversation could remain civil and insult free.” Schaper also states that he “will not censor because I strongly believe in the freedom of speech.” They accuse him of running and owning media companies that distribute gay pornography, something Schaper later admits, but only that it’s an “adult television network.” Homosexuality is not accepted within the Church of Scientology and is not tolerated. Scientology believes that homosexuality is a disease and can be cured.

A user named “Oschaper” has written articles on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia about Peephole TV and Volksmusik TV. Oliver Schaper is the founder of Peephole TV, and is also involved with Volksmusik TV. In an e-mail to Wikinews, Wikipedia user Oschaper claims that his first name is Olaf, and that he is “not related” to Oliver Schaper. “Olaf” writes: “My name is Olaf Schaper and I use the handle oschaper on Wikipedia. I’m not related to Oliver Schaper and we share only the last name … If you like to contact Oliver Schaper please see his companies website at www.acos.tv”. When asked how he managed to get an e-mail address with that last name, Olaf replied, “I got the email because my best friend works for his networks hence the creation of my postings on Wikipedia.”

Wikinews contacted Schaper for exclusive comments. Schaper replied saying that he is a “very strong advocate for the Church of Scientology, the religion of Scientology and a free speech advocate” and “I don’t need to go into details but I felt that my family and myself have been direct targets and in an attempt to control the situation, I started to track down and remove online links between me and my religion. This included postings made by HouseSpiderAnon on his videos, who publicly connected the dots and made them available to a larger audience.”

“I requested several times to have my information removed from his videos as I wanted no association with his work but he refused, even after I stated several times that he has the right to protest but that I would like to enforce my right of privacy. He refused and demanded documentation of the attacks, something I refused because it was not my attention to allow more documents to be available online in public hand,” added Schaper who also said he has been a victim of identity theft and now has the FBI involved in investigating his claim.

“Tustin PD [police department] has been on the case and now the FBI is involved as well. Social Security has been notified and we have seen about 200 attempts to use the SSN [social security number] for fake credit cards applications,” Schaper told Wikinews.

Schaper admits that he contacted YouTube to have videos which contained images of him that were being used without permission and videos “which violated [his] privacy removed.” Those requests made by Schaper were eventually accepted by YouTube but “videos that contained just a text messages directed against me or my church remained,” he added. He also admits to owning “several broadcasting companies, ACOS Broadcasting Corp. (eight mainstream television and two radio networks) & Media House Enterprises, Inc. (adult television network PEEPHOLE TV).”

“I had the power to go fully against copyrighted material because we own or licensed large amounts of content. But it was not my responsibility to enforce all copyright violations on YouTube. In addition with the attacks on our servers, websites and infrastructure, no time would have been available to take on a fight,” added Schaper.

Schaper also denies any involvement with the alleged rights group and also states he was just notified that it doesn’t even exist.

“As many other people, and even members of the Church of Scientology received information about a company that removed anti-Scientology content from YouTube, shit hit the fan and members of Anonymous went on a full attack on me. I still have to this date no information about the American Rights Counsel and I have no connection, knowledge or involvement in this company which I have been informed of does not even exists,” Schaper told Wikinews.

One critic of Scientology, television producer Mark Bunker also had his accounts deleted by YouTube, but had them quickly restored. Bunker also believes that the American Rights Counsel does not exist.

“American Rights Counsel LLC does not exist. When I got my take-down notices from YouTube I tried to file a DMCA counter-notice but in order to do that you need to get the name of the contact person to be served with the notice and the contact information of the company which the government lists on the web,” said Bunker to Wikinews who also added that their name is not registered with the United States copyright office.

“I next did a google search for American Rights Counsel LLC which brought up absolutely no results so clearly this was fraud from the beginning. I contact[ed] YouTube and they quickly restored everything to my account and others,” added Bunker.

Wikinews has also learned that a contributor on Wikipedia, claiming to be a member of Anonymous, has posted what is allegedly personal information of Schaper. The edit, made to the article Peephole TV states that he is a lawyer, employed with a firm on Ricklinger, Stadtweg in Hanover, Germany. It also stated that he is affiliated with the “Tustin Org” in California. In what seems to be a gathering of information on Schaper from other online sources, according to Enturbulation.org, the result of releasing the information has resulted in legal and physical threats from Schaper to someone, known as ‘HouseSpiderV2’ on Enturbulation, who has claimed to have released e-mail correspondence between him and Schaper.

“Don’t think I will not be able to track you down and serve you with papers. I would make the case so expensive for you that you would not be able to even fight this on your own funding as I have the money at my disposal,” allegedly states Schaper to ‘HouseSpiderV2’ in an e-mail. “You have 24 hours to remove the postings or I will start to make this a legal issue. That makes it simple,” he added.

Despite the claims that the Wikipedia contributor is Oliver Schaper, he claims to have never registered an account with Wikipedia. He also says he has never made any threats of physical harm to members of Anonymous.

“I had not the need to register an account with Wikipedia and after all this trouble will not get involved at all. There has never been any threat of violence against Housespideranon or any other member of Anonymous made by me,” Schaper told Wikinews.

Bunker, who recently spoke with Schaper, says he believes Schaper is not involved, but that he also doesn’t know who or what was responsible for filing the DMCA requests.

“I had never heard of Schaper before he was accused of this. I don’t know anything about him other than he contacted me and said he was not involved. I don’t know who was responsible. 4000 deletions in a matter of hours is a pretty major feat. It would be worth a subpoena to find out who committed this crime. I wouldn’t blame Schaper without knowing he did it,” Bunker added.

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]

Wednesday, March 9, 2005File:Plastic bag stock sized.jpg

They are cheap, useful, and very plentiful, and that is exactly the problem, according to researchers. A report issued on Feb. 23 by a cadre of environment and economics researchers suggested that Kenya should ban the common plastic bag that one gets at the checkout counter of grocery stores, and place a levy on other plastic bags, all to combat the country’s environmental problems stemming from the bags’ popularity.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

A number of reports confirm that Michael Moore’s forthcoming documentary has been leaked onto Peer-to-peer networks. This is the second pre-release leak in a month of a film from Lionsgate Studios.

The movie, SiCKO contrasts the U.S. healthcare system with that of several other countries and includes a trip to Cuba for which Moore is being investigated. The investigation by the Office of Foreign Assets Control within the United States Department of the Treasury is looking into whether Moore has violated United States embargo against Cuba, which has been in effect since 1962 and codified in 1992.

Moore has, according to agency reports, stored a copy of the original film in Canada as a result of the Federal investigation by the Treasury department. His concern is that an attempt may be made to confiscate the section of the film shot in Cuba.

According to Associated Press, David Boies, attorney for Michael Moore, believes the targeting of Moore for his unauthorised trip to Cuba may be the result of the criticism of the current administration in such films as Fahrenheit 9/11.

Tuesday Moore was seen at two pre-release screenings of the movie in Sacramento, California. His audiences were a group of politicians and a number of nurses, each attending their own screening.

The movie opens with a cold statistic that approximately 45 million Americans are without healthcare insurance. It continues by giving examples of people with healthcare insurance who have been denied all or part of their treatment for technical reasons. As well as getting thousands of responses from people who had problems with their insurance he received information from people working inside Health maintenance organizations and ex-employees who claim the system is set up to provide the minimum care and the maximum profit to the company.

The segment of the film that triggered the Federal investigation is his trip to Cuba with a number of people who relate their experiences with healthcare. Among these are several volunteer workers who worked at ground zero following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. These people claim to have been refused aid from the fund set up for 9/11 workers and were thus unable to afford their required treatment. After an attempt to obtain treatment at Guantanamo Bay detention facility – which Moore described as the only place on U.S. soil where there is “socialised medicine” – they seek out a hospital in Havana. All are checked and treated free of charge. One woman discovers that an inhaler for her respiratory problems costs approximately five cents in Cuba compared to 120 dollars in the U.S.

Health insurance companies, speaking through their trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), are critical of the film, which calls for healthcare similar to that of Canada, France, or the UK. “We need a uniquely American solution in which the public and private sectors work together to make sure that everyone has high-quality, affordable healthcare,” said Karen Ignagni, president of AHIP, on Wednesday.

The film is scheduled for wide release in the U.S. and Canada on June 29, 2007.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Penske Automotive Group, Inc., an Ohio-based investment group and Telesto Ventures have indicated separately that they are interested in purchasing the Saturn auto brand from General Motors (GM).

According to The Wall Street Journal, Nissan-Renault is interested in purchasing Saturn. Bloomberg, however, indicated that Nissan-Renault may be a partner of Penske’s potential bid. If Penske acquired the brand, they would distribute Saturn vehicles and outsource the assembly.

GM revealed that the Saturn brand along with Saab and Hummer were up for sale when unveiling their restructuring plans to Congress for governmental loans. While the Pontiac brand was originally to be a niche brand, GM had changed their plans recently and decided to eliminate the brand.

Telesto Ventures is an investment group that includes private equity firm Black Oak Partners LLC of Oklahoma City and several Saturn dealerships. Initially, Telesto will purchase Saturn branded cars from GM then act as a general retailer for foreign brands. Telesto is in talks with several foreign manufacturers.

The Ohio group includes many former senior auto company managers plus private financial backers, chemists and engineers who live in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Florida. This group plans to initially purchase cars from GM then purchase existing but closed plants due to automaker restructuring. Additionally, one of the partners indicated a willingness to accept some “legacy” cost in relation to the United Auto Workers. The Ohio group is also pursuing possible loans or other support from national and state governments.

GM is reviewing several offers for Saturn. GM has contracted with S.J. Girsky & Co. to advise them on the sale.