Tag: internet service providers

Who Called?

Advance fee for a loan scam

 
advance-fee-for-a-loan scam the only difference is it’s a grant instead of a loan, as described here http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/telemarketing/tel16.shtm which states “It is illegal for companies doing business in the U.S. by phone to promise you a loan and ask you to pay for it before they deliver.” They will want you to wire the money via Western Union (Moneygram, etc.) because wired-cash is irretrievable – once it’s picked up at the other end, it’s untraceable and the scammers will vanish on you. Report to the Internet Crime Complaint Center http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx , the Federal Communications Commission http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm , the Federal Trade Commission https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/ and your state AG.

GREAT #RIAA group’s financial power is weakening!

RIAA Makes Drastic Employee Cuts as Revenue Plummets

• Ernesto • May 22, 2013
http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-makes-drastic-employee-cuts-as-revenue-plummets-130522/
New tax records reveal that the RIAA has made heavy employee cuts after revenue dropped to a new low. Over the past two years the major record labels have cut back their membership dues from $33.6 to $23.6 million. RIAA staff plunged from 107 to 60 workers in the same period. The IRS filing further shows that the music industry group paid $250,000 to the six strikes anti-piracy system. The RIAA has submitted its latest tax filing to the IRS, covering the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. The figures follow the trend we spotted last year and show a massive decline in revenue for the music group. In just two years overall revenue has reduced from to $34.8 to $24.8 million.
For decades the RIAA has been the anti-piracy bastion of the music industry, but the new numbers show that the group’s financial power is weakening.
The drop in income can be solely attributed to lower membership dues from the major music labels. Over the past two years label contributions have dropped to $23.6 million, and over a three-year period the labels cut back a total of $30 million, which is more than the RIAA’s total income today. The cutbacks are not immediately apparent from the salaries paid to the top executives.
RIAA Chairman and CEO Cary Sherman, for example, earned $1.46 million compared to $1.37 million the year before. Senior Executive Vice President Mitch Glazier also saw a modest rise in income from $618,946 to $642,591.
A lot of the revenue decline has translated into employee cuts. Over a two year period the number of RIAA employees has been slashed almost in half from 107 to just 60. The reduction in legal costs is even more significant, going from to $6.4 million to $1.2 million in two years.
In part, this reduction was accomplished by no longer targeting individual file-sharers in copyright infringement lawsuits, which is a losing exercise for the group. Looking through other income we see that the RIAA received $196,378 in “anti-piracy restitution,” coming from the damages awarded in lawsuits against Limewire and such. Finally, the tax filing also reveals that the RIAA paid $250,000 to the Center of Copyright Information for the “six strikes” scheme.
Together with the MPAA the RIAA coughs up half of the CCI budget, but since the fiscal year ended March 2012 it’s probably not the full year payment
. Overall the filing appears to suggest that the major labels believe that the RIAA can operate with fewer funds. This is a trend that has been going on for a few years and it will be interesting to see how long it continues.
KNOW YOUR JURY RIGHTS DEFEAT THE RIAA IN COURT DEFEND YOURSELF IN COURT FROM THE RIAA THE JURY ACTS AS THE FOURTH BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT The Principle of Jury Nullification.
ISP ILLEGAL DOWNLOADING WARNINGS
LEARN MORE ABOUT WHY FILE SHARING IS NOT THEFT AND THE FALSE CLAIMS OF THE RIAA DUE TO P2P
MUSIC LAW: CONTRACTS AND MUSIC DEALS
FAIR USE Learn more about why file sharing is not theft and the false claims of the RIAA due to P2P, From the Educational CyberPlayGround.

Verizon Customers Manhattan, NY Still Don't Have Service After Sandy — 186 Days and Counting

New Networks Shame on Verizon: There Are Customers in Manhattan, New York City Who Still Don’t Have Service After Sandy — 186 Days and Counting. Read the article  Download the article.
This is a foreboding glimpse into your future communications services if you live in the USA. I’m sitting in a high ceiling parlor in an aged brownstone at the E.9th Street Block Association meeting. People are telling me, somewhat muting their anger, that some have had no phone service since Sandy, October 28th 2012 —- 186 days ago, almost 6 months, almost half a year. Some had their service restored over the last month, only being out for about 5 months. I’m in a roomful of people in the middle of Manhattan, New York City, and I can’t believe my ears. I’ve been a telecom analyst for 31 years and thought I’d heard everything before – but this? Mayor Bloomberg, with claims that New York City is a world center for technology announced his new campaign, “We Are Made in NY” in 2013, stating we’re “strengthening the city as a global hub for innovation.” Being out of service is only one of the Manhattenites’ problems. Almost all of those without Verizon service have continued to be billed for services that THEY DO NOT RECEIVE. What’s the problem – how could this be happening in America?

Sascha Meinrath should be New FCC Chairman @saschameinrath

“You can’t have an objective chairman of the FCC that’s got 20 years of their life invested in being the head lobbyist for industry,” Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation said in an interview.

Sascha Meinrath

“You can’t have an objective chairman of the FCC that’s got 20 years of their life invested in being the head lobbyist for industry,” Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation said in an interview.

Vice President and Director, Open Technology Institute

Sascha Meinrath is vice president of the New America Foundation and director of the Open Technology Institute. In 2012 he was named one of the top 100 in Newsweek’s Digital Power Index and he has been described as a “community Internet pioneer” and an “entrepreneurial visionary.” He is a well-known expert on community wireless networks, municipal broadband, and telecommunications policy. In 2009 he was named one of Ars Technica’s Tech Policy “People to Watch” and is also the 2009 recipient of the Public Knowledge IP3 Award for excellence in public interest advocacy.
Sascha founded the Commotion Wireless Project (a.k.a., the “Internet-in-a-Suitcase”) and, along with Vint Cerf, is the co-founder of Measurement Lab (M-Lab), a distributed server platform for researchers around the world to deploy Internet measurement tools, advance network research, and empower the public with useful information about their broadband connections. He coordinates the Open Source Wireless Coalition, a global partnership of wireless integrators, researchers, implementors and companies dedicated to the development of open source, interoperable, low-cost wireless technologies. Sascha has worked with Free Press, the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA), the Acorn Active Media Foundation, the Ethos Group, and the CUWiN Foundation.

 
BEST GOVERNMENT PRACTICES
December 18, 2006 By Sascha Meinrath
The problem of emergency communications and disaster recovery is often not the lack of resources, but lack of coordination. After Katrina, Sascha Meinrath coordinated the Community Wireless Emergency Response Initiative. The following offers some of what he and others learned about emergency communications.
Contrary to popular perception, the problem of disaster recovery is often not the lack of resources, but lack of coordination.
One key component to successful emergency response is a dynamic, direct and robust communications network — a structure the United States had been missing. Key decision-makers turned a deaf ear to the problem until Hurricane Katrina made such an ostrich-stance untenable, and the United States had to learn the lesson the hard way. Yet a year later, improvements have been incredibly modest. During the next major disaster, experts say we should expect more of the same — a lack of coherent, rapidly deployable, interoperable communications networks for first responders and the communities they serve.