BHD Christmas Event

Starting December 1st, 2023 at 0:00 UTC all BHD members may start opening doors on the Advent calendar!

Open the door that corresponds to which day of the month it is and win BP. temporary freeleech tokens, magic touch promo or collectibles.

Reminder to collect your gifts from BHD throughout December!

A new study provides evidence that pigeons tackle some problems just as artificial intelligence would -- allowing them to solve difficult tasks that would vex humans.

Previous research had shown pigeons learned how to solve complex categorization tasks that human ways of thinking -- like selective attention and explicit rule use -- would not be useful in solving.

Researchers had theorized that pigeons used a "brute force" method of solving problems that is similar to what is used in AI models, said Brandon Turner, lead author of the new study and professor of psychology at The Ohio State University.

But this study may have proven it: Turner and a colleague tested a simple AI model to see if it could solve the problems in the way they thought pigeons did -- and it worked.

"We found really strong evidence that the mechanisms guiding pigeon learning are remarkably similar to the same principles that guide modern machine learning and AI techniques," Turner said.

"Our findings suggest that in the pigeon, nature may have found a way to make an incredibly efficient learner that has no ability to generalize or extrapolate like humans would."

Turner conducted the study with Edward Wasserman, a professor of psychology at the University of Iowa. Their results were published recently in the journal iScience.
In the study, pigeons were shown a stimulus, which could include lines of various widths and angles, concentric rings and sectioned rings. They had to peck a button on the right or left to indicate to which category it belonged to. If they got it correct, they received a food pellet -- if they were wrong, they received nothing.

There were four different tasks in the study, some harder than the others. Results showed that, through trial and error, the pigeons improved their ability to make the correct choices in one of the easier experiments from about 55% to 95% of the time. Even in a more difficult scenario, their correct responses improved from 55% to 68%.

Researchers believed the pigeons used what is called associative learning, which is linking two phenomena with each other. For example, it is easy to understand the link between "water" and "wet." People teach their dogs to link sitting when they are commanded with receiving a treat.

But those associations are relatively easy.

"Associative learning is frequently presumed to be far too primitive and rigid to explain complex visual categorization like what we saw the pigeons do," Turner said.

But that's exactly what the researchers found.
The researchers' AI model tackled the same tasks using just the two simple mechanisms that pigeons were presumed to use: associative learning and error correction. And, like the pigeons, the AI model learned to make the right predictions to significantly increase the number of correct answers.

For humans, the challenge when given tasks like those given to pigeons is that they would try to come up with a rule or rules that could make the task easier.

"But in this case, there were no rules that could help make this any easier. That really frustrates humans and they often give up on tasks like this," he said.

"Pigeons don't try to make rules. They just use this brute force way of trial and error and associative learning and in some specific types of tasks that helps them perform better than humans."

What's interesting, though, is that pigeons use this method of learning that is very similar to AI designed by humans, Turner said.

"We celebrate how smart we are that we designed artificial intelligence, at the same time we disparage pigeons as dim-witted animals," he said.

"But the learning principles that guide the behaviors of these AI machines are pretty similar to what pigeons use."

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

NASA's InSight mission to Mars helped scientists map out Mars' internal structure, including the size and composition of its core, and provided general hints about its tumultuous formation.

But findings from a new paper published in the journal Nature could lead to reanalysis of that data. An international team of researchers discovered the presence of a molten silicate layer overlying Mars' metallic core -- providing new insights into how Mars formed, evolved and became the barren planet it is today.

Published on October 25, 2023, the team's paper details the use of seismic data to locate and identify a thin layer of molten silicates (rock-forming minerals that make up the crust and mantle of Mars and Earth) lying between the Martian mantle and core. With the discovery of this molten layer, the researchers determined that Mars' core is both denser and smaller than previous estimates, a conclusion that better aligns with other geophysical data and analysis of Martian meteorites.

Vedran Lekic, a professor of geology at the University of Maryland and co-author of the paper, compared the molten layer to a 'heating blanket' covering the Martian core.

"The blanket not only insulates the heat coming from the core and prevents the core from cooling, but also concentrates radioactive elements whose decay generates heat" Lekic said. "And when that happens, the core is likely to be unable to produce the convective motions that would create a magnetic field -- which can explain why Mars currently doesn't have an active magnetic field around it."

Without a functional protective magnetic field around itself, a terrestrial planet such as Mars would be extremely vulnerable to harsh solar winds and lose all the water on its surface, making it incapable of sustaining life. Lekic added that this difference between Earth and Mars could be attributed to differences in internal structure and the different planetary evolution paths the two planets took.

"The thermal blanketing of Mars' metallic core by the liquid layer at the base of the mantle implies that external sources are necessary to generate the magnetic field recorded in the Martian crust during the first 500 to 800 million years of its evolution," said the paper's lead author Henri Samuel, a scientist with the French National Center for Scientific Research. "These sources could be energetic impacts or core motion generated by gravitational interactions with ancient satellites which have since then disappeared."

The team's conclusions support theories that Mars was at one time a molten ocean of magma that later crystallized to produce a layer of silicate melt enriched in iron and radioactive elements at the base of the Martian mantle. The heat emanating from the radioactive elements would then have dramatically altered the thermal evolution and cooling history of the red planet.
"These layers, if widespread, can have pretty big consequences for the rest of the planet," Lekic said. "Their existence can help tell us whether magnetic fields can be generated and maintained, how planets cool over time, and also how the dynamics of their interiors change over time."

NASA's InSight mission officially ended in December 2022 after more than four years of collecting data on Mars, but the analysis of the observations continues. Samuel, Lekic and their co-authors are among the latest researchers to reexamine prior models of Mars using seismology to confirm the planet's structure and turbulent history.

"This new discovery of a molten layer is just one example of how we continue to learn new things from the completed InSight mission," Lekic said. "We hope that the information we've gathered on planetary evolution using seismic data is paving the way for future missions to celestial bodies like the moon and other planets like Venus."

Astrophysicists from Trinity College Dublin are scanning the Universe for "technosignatures" emanating from distant planets that would provide support for the existence of intelligent, alien life.

Using the Irish LOFAR telescope and its counterpart in Onsala, Sweden, the team -- led by Professor Evan Keane, Associate Professor of Radio Astronomy in Trinity's School of Physics, and Head of the Irish LOFAR Telescope -- plans to monitor millions of star systems.

Scientists have been searching for extraterrestrial radio signals for well over 60 years. Many of these have been carried out using single observatories which limits the ability to identify signals from the haze of terrestrial interference on Earth. Much of the effort has focused on frequencies above 1 GHz because the single-dish telescopes employed operate at these frequencies.

Now, a new collaboration led by Trinity College Dublin, with the Breakthrough Listen team and Onsala Space Observatory in Sweden, is perfecting a multi-site, multi-telescope technique that allows them to search at much lower frequencies of 110 -- 190 MHz.

The Breakthrough Listen programme is the most comprehensive search for technologically advanced extraterrestrial life, developing dedicated instruments at the Irish and Swedish LOFAR stations. Using multiple sites has the major benefit that it is much less likely to provide a "false positive" signal; such signals arise due to interference from many human sources on Earth.

The team has just published details of their method and their ongoing search in the Astronomical Journal They have already scanned 1.6 million star systems flagged as interesting targets by the Gaia and TESS space missions, run by ESA and NASA respectively. So far these searches have drawn a blank.

But the search has only just begun...
Prof. Keane said: "In the last 50 years evidence has steadily mounted that the constituents and conditions necessary for life are relatively common in the Universe, which begs one of life's greatest unanswered questions: are we really alone?

"To some people the 'Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, or SETI' might seem like something from a movie, but it has been a scientific pursuit for decades, and for a host of very good reasons. With this project we are basing our search on the common assumption that civilisations elsewhere in the Universe may employ similar technologies to those developed on Earth. As a result radio frequencies are a logical domain for conducting SETI surveys due to the widespread use of telecommunications and radar and our access to next-gen radio telescopes offers a great chance for a deep dive into the Universe."

Owen Johnson, PhD Candidate in Trinity's School of Physics, is the first author of the journal article, and the first Irish person to ever undertake a PhD on the topic of SETI. He added:

"What makes surveys like this one truly captivating is the fact that we're pushing these telescopes to their absolute limits, directing them towards substantial portions of the sky. As a result, we have the exciting possibility of discovering all sorts of wild and wondrous phenomena during this process and if we're very fortunate, even encountering our cosmic neighbours.

"LOFAR is soon to undergo a staged series of upgrades across all stations in the array across Europe, which will allow an even broader SETI at ranges of 15 -- 240 MHz. We have billions of star systems to explore and will be relying on some machine learning techniques to sift through the immense volume of data.

"That in itself is interesting -- it would be fairly ironic if humankind discovered alien life by using artificial intelligence."

 

The Clark County School District (CCSD) in Nevada is dealing with a potentially massive data breach, as hackers email parents their children's' data that was allegedly stolen during a recent cyberattack.

CCSD is the fifth largest school district in the US, with over 300,000 students and 15,000 teachers.

On October 16, CCSD confirmed it suffered a cyberattack earlier this month, stating threat actors gained access to the district's email servers.

"On approximately October 5, 2023, Clark County School District ("CCSD") became aware of a cybersecurity incident impacting its email environment," reads a statement from the Clark County School District.

"Upon discovering the incident, CCSD immediately engaged a team of forensic experts to investigate the incident and ensure that CCSD operates within a safe and remediated email environment. CCSD is also cooperating with law enforcement's investigation."

"Thus far, the investigation revealed that the unauthorized party accessed limited personal information related to a subset of students, parents, and employees. CCSD is working diligently to identify all individuals whose information was impacted by this incident."

In response to the attack, CCSD disabled access to its Google Workspace from external accounts and has forced reset all student's passwords.

Since then, things have taken a turn for the worse, with parents reporting they are receiving emails from the threat actors warning that their child's data was leaked.

"I'm so sorry to tell you this but unfortunately your private information has been leaked. You should probably change your information in CCSD systems if that is possible," reads an email titled "CCSD Leak" seen by the Las Vegas Review Journal.

"There are over 200,000 student profiles like this which have been leaked now by the hackers. Be careful out there. Don't shoot the messenger!"
 

 

According to a report from KSNV News 3 Las Vegas, these emails include PDF files that contain students' stolen data, including student photos, addresses, student ID numbers, and email addresses,

Both students and parents are upset and scared that the threat actor has their data and could potentially use it for other malicious purposes, such as identity theft or further phishing attacks.

BleepingComputer contacted CCSD on Friday but did not receive a response as they were closed for the Nevada Day holiday.

SingularityMD hackers claim attack

According to a detailed report by DataBreaches.net, the hackers behind the Clark County School District breach call themselves 'SingularityMD' and have already begun to leak what they claim is the data for 200,000 CCSD students.

The threat actors contacted DataBreaches.net to share information about the attack, including a link to a "statement" that contains URLs for allegedly stolen data.

"We SingularityMD (the hack team), would like to make a statement for clarification. CCSD did not detect a security issue, we emailed them to tell them we had been in their network for a few months," reads a note by the hackers on a code-sharing site.

"For 6 years they forced students to use their birthday as their password, resetting the passwords back to their birth date each year, they even prevented the students from securing their accounts."

"We asked for less than one third of the Jesus F Jara's annual salary in exchange for destroying the stolen data. The callousness and incompetence of the leadership at CCSD is astounding, not only did they not cooperate, it is clear they did not communicate with principals and have still not plugged their leaky ship, meaning we still have access to the network."

This note contains links to leaked data archives hosted on dark web and clearweb sites, containing what the hackers claim is the personal data of 200,000 students.

This data allegedly contains student's emails, birth dates, ethnicity, PSAT scores, health information, suspensions, incident reports, and other information.

The threat actors also leaked what they state are financial reports, staff salaries, and grant information from the district.

DataBreaches.net examined some of the leaked data and said it looks legitimate, but CCSD has not responded to their emails to verify if the data belongs to them.

However, parents who received some of the leaked data have already verified that the information belongs to their children, adding legitimacy to the leaks.

At this time, the threat actors claim to still have access to CCSD's systems and have more data that they will leak if the school district does not pay an extortion demand.

"One final tip for CCSD, we will continue to cause trouble until you pay, or you finally kick us out of your network," concluded the threat actor's post.

BleepingComputer has been unable to verify if the attacker's claims of still having access to CCSD systems are true.

Furthermore, it should be noted that SingularityMD is not related to the AI platform under the same name.

 

Microsoft and Siemens have announced plans to deepen their partnership around generative artificial intelligence (AI) and its application in industries worldwide. In a move that promises to revolutionize human-machine collaboration, the companies are launching Siemens Industrial Copilot, an AI assistant jointly developed to improve productivity in manufacturing.

Siemens Industrial Copilot utilizes Microsoft's Azure OpenAI service alongside Siemens' industrial expertise and data from its Xcelerator platform. It allows to rapidly generate, optimize, and debug complex automation code through natural language interactions. The companies say this can shorten tasks that took weeks to minutes, such as simulation processes.
 

 

Siemens Industrial Copilot will allow users to rapidly generate, optimize and debug complex automation code and significantly shorten simulation times. This will reduce a task that previously took weeks to minutes.

The copilot promises a significant efficiency boost across the industrial lifecycle by assisting maintenance workers with repair instructions and engineers with rapid simulation access. Automaker Schaeffler Group will be among the first to adopt it to generate reliable robot programming code for their engineers.

In a statement, Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, said:
 

 

With this next generation of AI, we have a unique opportunity to accelerate innovation across the entire industrial sector. We're building on our longstanding collaboration with Siemens and bringing together AI advances across the Microsoft Cloud with Siemens' industrial domain expertise to empower both frontline and knowledge workers with new, AI-powered tools, starting with Siemens Industrial Copilot.

In addition, Siemens will integrate its Teamcenter product lifecycle management software with Microsoft Teams. The app uses generative AI to connect functions like frontline workers to engineering design teams virtually. It aims to make product data more accessible for the estimated millions of factory and service workers without product lifecycle management (PLM) access.

The companies envision various AI copilots supporting industries like manufacturing, infrastructure, transportation, and healthcare in the future.

 

In 2020, Microsoft announced huge layoffs across MSN and Azure organizations, among others, due to the company replacing its editor and curators with AI algorithms. Now, the algorithms seem to have caused an issue between Microsoft and The Guardian.

Today, The Guardian accused Microsoft of damaging its reputation after an inappropriate AI-generated poll appeared beside the tragic news of the death of 21-year-old Lilie James in Sydney.

Appearing right beside it, the distasteful poll asked users what the reason for the woman’s death was and gave readers the option to choose between murder, suicide, or accident. Naturally, the poll disturbed readers and was soon taken down from the website.

Nevertheless, the damage was already done as some highly critical comments from readers were still up until Tuesday morning on the article. Some of the Microsoft Start readers, according to The Guardian, were also unaware that it was Microsoft that created the poll. This affected The Guardian's reputation.

One of such comments called out The Guardian stating, “This has to be the most pathetic, disgusting poll I’ve ever seen,” while another wrote, “Tamsin [the Guardian journalist] should be sacked for that poll. No community guidelines at play here obviously??”

Following this, the chief executive of the Guardian Media Group, Anna Bateson, wrote a letter to Microsoft president, Brad Smith discussing the issue.

The two-page letter, as shared by The Guardian with The Verge, argues that the AI-generated poll makes it seem as if The Guardian had displayed it, hence, damaging its reputation. Moreover, the letter calls out Microsoft saying that there is a “strong case” for the company attaching a note with the article taking full responsibility for the incident.

The letter also adds:
 

 

“We would also like your assurance that a) Microsoft will not apply these experimental technologies on or alongside Guardian licensed journalism without our explicit prior approval; and b) that Microsoft will always make it clear to users of of your platforms wherever genAI is involved in creating additional units and features as they apply to third party journalism from trusted news brands like the Guardian.”

Bateson even went as far as to call this an “inappropriate use” of generative AI and an incident that emphasizes the “important role that a strong copyright framework plays” in helping journalists and publishers to discuss how their work is shared online.

The Guardian has asked Microsoft to comment, however, Microsoft has not sent a reply to the letter or shared a statement addressing the issue yet.

 

The European Data Protection Board has extended the temporary ban on targeted advertising on Facebook and Instagram, imposed by the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (DPA) in July.

As the Norwegian DPA (Datatilsynet) explained in July, Meta uses content preferences, the info users post on Facebook and Instagram, and their location information to build personalized profiles for targeted advertising, a tactic commonly known as behavioral advertising.

The European watchdog's 27 October urgent binding decision instructs Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) to ban the processing of personal data for behavioral advertising across the entire European Economic Area (EEA) within two weeks.

Meta will have a week to comply with the order once the Irish data regulator finishes evaluating the company's proposal to rely on a consent-based approach as a legal basis for processing its users' data.

"After careful consideration, the EDPB considered it necessary to instruct the IE SA to impose an EEA-wide processing ban, addressed to Meta IE. Already in December 2022, the EDPB Binding Decisions clarified that contract is not a suitable legal basis for the processing of personal data carried out by Meta for behavioural advertising," said EDPB Chair Anu Talus.

"In addition, Meta has been found by the IE SA to not have demonstrated compliance with the orders imposed at the end of last year. It is high time for Meta to bring its processing into compliance and to stop unlawful processing."
 

 

The Norwegian data protection agency said today that Meta had been informed that their business model and the use of personal data are in breach of European privacy regulations and, although the company said it would ask users for consent to use their data for behavioral marketing in the future, it has yet to introduce any changes.

"The Norwegian Data Protection Authority is very concerned about the illegal tracking, monitoring, and profiling on Facebook and Instagram. Although it has long been clear that Meta is breaking the law, and despite the Norwegian Data Protection Authority's ban, Meta continues with its illegal processing of personal data," Datatilsynet said (automated translation).

"This is why we have chosen to raise the matter to the Personal Data Protection Board (EDPB), which has now agreed that there is an urgent need for a permanent ban on illegal activities at the European level."

In December 2022, the Irish DPC also fined Meta a total of €390 million (~$438 million) for illegal behavioral advertising by forcing Instagram and Facebook users to consent to personal data processing for targeted advertising.

Meta rejected DPC's findings and said it would appeal the fine, blaming the decision on a "lack of regulatory clarity."

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) found that Meta's GDPR approach to behavioral advertising was still non-compliant with EU regulations even though the Irish watchdog ordered Meta to bring its current data processing operations into compliance with GDPR's regulations within the next three months.

In November 2022, Meta was slapped with another €265 million ($275.5 million) fine for failing to protect Facebook users' data from scrapers after data linked to 533 million accounts leaked on a hacker forum.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2023! Double Donations just this month! Donate now and get double upload credits and double bonus points! Offer valid till 31 Dec 2023

Pre-notice of adjustment of Magic Company
In order to strengthen official seed conservation, the magic value formula will be adjusted in the near future. We will notify you in advance. Please know in advance

Once (or twice) a year is not customary, it is time to talk "small money" for the Tracker, and for the Retention Team which manages the annex servers.

Concerning the tracker and the donations which make it possible to operate the site, 2 problems

- 1) The results are pretty good, there's nothing too much - because there was a little left from last year, but it's not abundance either. We are finishing the year 2023 of course, but we are starting the next one without any advance, and at this rate there is no guarantee that we will last until 2024.
- 2) If the proposals for donations via PayPal come in well, we lack volunteers to receive these “paypal” donations and send them back to us in BTC. For a little over 2 months we have no longer had anyone to carry out these operations, and proposals for PayPal donations remain "on hold".

Conclusion : we are looking for a few volunteer members to help us carry out these transactions which will ensure both the future and the financial security of the site. Anyone handling BTC at all and wishing to help is asked to contact me by pm with the subject “ABN Donations” ( https://abn.lol/Inbox/Create?UserId=167 ). The prize is 100,000 choco's offered per PayPal/BTC transaction, freleech prompts and tokens, and the winning of a small golden star attached to your nickname (with personal option to make it appear, or not).
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Concerning the Team which manages the retention and reseed of your torrents


These anonymous people who meet you every day began this adventure at the beginning of 2020 with around fifteen members who finance the rental and maintenance of all these servers ("Scene" and "P2P" upload server, seed and reseed server as well as as storage of torrents to make them available "on demand"), each of them making a "free" donation each month which has made it possible to finance the entire retention/reseed system for 3 years.

If on behalf of the Team I speak to you about it and relay this request for help and recruitment of new members, it is because the donations made by these members in 2023 will not be enough to finish the year and will seriously handicap the team. year 2024. Some members have had to stop donations, others can no longer give as much as in previous years. In fact, around €100 is missing to pay for November and December and 4 or 5 new donor members who will commit for the year 2024 via PayPal donations.
The team informs that without a helping hand, in mid-December they will have to stop one server out of the 3 currently used to make it all work and that they will no longer be able to upload and resee the numerous uploads of the so-called "P2P" Teams.

Anyone willing/able to help and asked to contact me by pm with the subject "Retention" (). The key to the advantages that I will detail to future members (anonymity, FTP access, Streaming etc etc).

Thank you all in advance.

Tonight from 7 p.m.
This evening at 7 p.m. French time we offer you
 

 

Christmas Questions for 500 bonus points for each correct answer

Server Maintenance Announcement
We plan to move our site to a new dedicated server this week Upgrade server
performance (although currently sufficient )
And , perform maintenance on the email system again

Cloudflare is a content-neutral Internet infrastructure service. The company aims not to interfere with the traffic of its clients and users but, in some cases, it has to take action. This means responding to DMCA subpoenas and takedown requests for hosted content, for example. In addition, Cloudflare now reports it has blocked access to 'abusive' content on its Ethereum gateway.
 

 

Popular Internet infrastructure service Cloudflare serves millions of customers and provides a variety of connectivity and privacy features to the general public.

People can freely use the company’s open DNS resolver 1.1.1.1, for example, or use its IPFS and Ethereum gateways to access content on these decentralized web services.

One of Cloudflare’s main aims is to make the Internet more secure while respecting the privacy of its users. This laudable goal is broadly respected but in common with other internet services, abuse of Cloudflare’s services can lead to conflicting situations.

The California-based company previously terminated service to controversial sites including the Daily Stormer and Kiwi Farms. These actions were taken voluntarily, with Cloudflare citing an immediate threat to human life as the reason for the Kiwi Farms intervention.

Domain Blocking

In addition to these rare events, the Internet infrastructure company is also subject to court orders from around the globe. In some cases, these orders require the company to block access to piracy-related domain names.

Cloudflare mentions these blocking orders in its latest transparency report which covers the second half of 2022. The report doesn’t mention the number of court orders or blocked domains, but it confirms that Cloudflare complies with legitimate legal rulings.

“If we determine that the order is valid and requires Cloudflare action, we may limit blocking of access to the content to those areas where it violates local law, a practice known as ‘geo-blocking’,” Cloudflare writes.

DNS Blocking

DNS blocking orders apply locally and shouldn’t affect people in other countries. However, things got more complicated recently when an Italian court required Cloudflare to restrict access to three torrent sites through its public DNS resolver 1.1.1.1.

Cloudflare fiercely objected to the order but ultimately lost the legal battle. That left the company with no other option than to take action. But, instead of blocking content through its global DNS resolver, it geo-blocked the domains for Italians.

“To the extent that those websites used Cloudflare services, Cloudflare took steps following the issuance of the order to disable access to those websites for users in Italy or from Cloudflare equipment in Italy.

“Cloudflare took action to geoblock all three domains that were addressed by the court’s order and were using our service at the time the orders were issued via Cloudflare’s pass-through CDN and security services,” the company added.

IPFS and Ethereum Restrictions

In its most recent transparency report, Cloudflare further notes that it has implemented access restrictions on its public Ethereum gateway. The company doesn’t store any content on the Ethereum network, nor can it remove any. However, it can block access through its service.

If Cloudflare receives valid abuse reports or copyright infringement complaints, it will take appropriate action. The same applies to the gateway for the decentralized IPFS network.

In its previous transparency report, Cloudflare already mentioned more than 1,000 IPFS actions a figure that increased slightly in the second half of last year. At the same time, Cloudflare also restricted access to 99 ‘items’ on the Ethereum network.
 

 

Since these are ‘gateway’ related restrictions there’s no impact on the content hosted on IPFS or Ethereum. Instead, it will only make it impossible to access content through Cloudflare’s service.

It’s not clear how many of these restrictions are abuse or copyright-related, as not much context is provided. The Ethereum actions are, at least in part, a response to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s sanctions against the cryptocurrency tumbler Tornado Cash.

“Those sanctions raise significant legal questions about the extent to which particular computer software, rather than individuals or entities that use that software, can be subject to sanctions,” Cloudflare writes.

“Nonetheless, to comply with legal requirements, Cloudflare has taken steps to disable access through the Cloudflare-operated Ethereum Gateway to the digital currency addresses identified in the designation.”

DMCA Notices and Subpoenas

There are more obvious copyright responses as well. While Cloudflare generally doesn’t block content in response to DMCA notices for customers that use its CDN services, it does remove infringing content permanently hosted on its servers.

These hosting services have expanded over the years and the same is true for the volume of valid DMCA notices received, up from 18 to 972 in the span of a year, as shown below. That’s still a fairly modest number for a company with millions of customers.
 

 

Finally, Cloudflare reports that the number of civil subpoenas, including those issued under the DMCA, has decreased. Rightsholders including the Motion Picture Association (MPA) typically use these requests to obtain identifying information about Cloudflare customers.

In the second half of last year, the company received 20 civil subpoenas which targeted 57 domain names. That’s the lowest number since Cloudflare first disclosed this statistic five years ago, signaling a downward trend.

Internet provider Optimum faces a billion-dollar damages claim for allegedly turning a blind eye to pirating subscribers. These allegations are made by several music companies based on evidence provided by tracking company Rightscorp. Optimum is not convinced that the evidence is reliable and accurate; the ISP also questions Rightscorp's business practices.
 

 

Under U.S. copyright law, Internet providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances.”

This legal requirement remained largely unenforced for nearly two decades but a series of copyright infringement liability lawsuits, including a billion-dollar damages award against Cox, have shaken up the industry.

Music Companies Sue Optimum

While Internet terminations are more common today, that hasn’t stopped the lawsuits. Last December, a group of music rightsholders including BMG, UMG, and Capitol filed a complaint at the Eastern District of Texas, accusing Optimum’s parent company Altice USA of facilitating massive copyright infringement.

The pirating activity of subscribers shouldn’t be a surprise for the ISP, plaintiffs argued, as the company received numerous copyright infringement notices. This included those sent by the tracking company Rightscorp, which were paired with settlement demands.

“Rather than work with Plaintiffs or take other meaningful or effective steps to curb this massive infringement, Altice chose to permit infringement to run rampant, prioritizing its own profits over the Plaintiffs’ rights,” the complaint read.

To make the music companies whole, they demanded roughly a billion dollars in damages and an order requiring Optimum to prevent repeat copyright infringements on its network going forward.

Questioning the Evidence

Optimum’s parent company fiercely denies the allegations and argues that it’s protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor. To mount a proper defense, the ISP is conducting discovery for the upcoming trial, showing particular interest in Rightscorp’s piracy evidence.

Specifically, the ISP believes that the reliability and accuracy of Rightscorp’s detection system are central to its defense. Thus far, however, the piracy tracking company has failed to hand over all requested information.

To force the matter, Altice submitted a motion to compel Rightscorp to comply with the subpoenaed information. In its request, the company also scolds the music companies for trying to turn ISPs into copyright police, while characterizing Rightscorp’s copyright notices as ‘spam’.

“This case is the latest attempt by the music industry to engineer a copyright-liability regime that makes ISPs responsible for all infringement that takes place on the internet—and thereby turn ISPs into their de facto enforcers.

“Rightscorp intentionally sends out millions of notices a year, and includes threatening settlement demands therein, as it stands to gain a portion of each settlement received as a result of each notice. In reality, the volume of these notices is so high that it risks crippling Altice’s systems,” the motion adds.
 

 

More Information Needed

If the music companies want to hold Optimum liable for the copyright infringements of its subscribers, the ISP wants to review all underlying evidence in detail. Although Rightscorp has handed over some information, including notices and spreadsheets with metadata, the ISP seeks more.

For example, Rightscorp should be able to share information on its agreements with the music company plaintiffs, assessments of the accuracy of its piracy detection system, documents related to settlements with the ISP’s customers, and more.

“Given that the notices are at the center of the lawsuit between the Plaintiffs and Altice, Altice is seeking evidence concerning the accuracy and reliability of Rightscorp’s systems for detecting infringement and sending notices, as well as the data, evidence, records, or information on how Rightscorp verified the files before sending such notices,” the motion reads.

The complaint itself doesn’t include any of this information. Instead, the plaintiffs refer to Rightscorp, which takes a central role in this case as a result.

Rightscorp has yet to file a response to the motion, which is due mid-December. After that, the court will decide whether the piracy tracking company must hand over additional information, or not.