Copyright Management and Control Systems: Post-Infringement

Post-infringement technologies allow the owners of copyrighted works to identify infringements and thus enhance enforcement of intellectual property rights and encompass systems such as:

Steganography

Applied to electronic files, steganography refers to the process of hiding information in files that can not be easily detected by users. Steganography can be used by intellectual property owners in a variety of ways. One is to insert into the file a "digital watermark" which can be used to prove that an infringing file was the creation of the copyright holder and not the pirate. Other possibilities are to encode a unique serial number into each authorized copy or file, enabling the owner to trace infringing copies to a particular source, or to store copyright management information.

Agents

Agents are programs that can implement specified commands automatically. Copyright owners can use agents to search the public spaces of the Internet to find infringing copies. Although the technology is not yet very well developed full-text search engines allow similar uses.

Copyright Litigation

While not every infringement will be the subject of litigation, the threat of litigation helps keep large pirate operations in check. It helps copyright owners obtain relief for specific acts of infringement and publicly warns others of the dangers of infringement.

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Think Tanks and the Internet

As think tanks try to push policy making in their desired direction in such diverse fields as health, education, taxation, regulation and national security it is not surprising, that also the Internet has entered their issue list:

RAND, a center-right U.S. think tank not only argues for the usage of certain guidelines concerning the use of e-mail, but has also released a research report - sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense - entitled "Strategic Information Warfare: A New Face of War". In November 1999 RAND has furthermore launched a co-operation with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) aimed at combating the threat of cybercrime. ICCs practical expertise and RANDs research and analytical capacities shall aid at finding solutions to fight hackers, industrial spies, and other criminals who may exploit the Internet to attack commercial and public-sector systems.

Another of the big players in the elite of think tanks, the conservative Washington D.C. based Cato Institute quite surprisingly has started to defend human rights in Cyberspace. Jonathan D. Wallace' "Nameless in Cyberspace: Anonymity on the Internet." sees the constitutionally guaranteed right of freedom of speech and expression in the United States under attack by proposals to limit or restrict the use of anonymity on the Internet.

Yet another conservative think tank, the U.S. based Center for Strategic and International Studies in June 1999 has initiated a Conference (Global Information Infrastructure Commission) to accelerate the development of E-Commerce in India. Among the Conferences participants were not only government representatives from India and the United States, but also the CEO of Global TeleSystems Group Inc., the vice chairman of Fujitsu and the executive president of Siemens A.G., as well as the World Bank and the World Intellectual Property Organization.

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Pine Gap Station



Pine Gap, run by the CIA, is near Alice Springs in central Australia and mostly an underground facility. Pine Gap was mainly established to serve as the groundstation and downlink for reconnaissance satellites like the RHYOLITE and ORION system. The facility consists of more than 7 large antennas in randomes. In Pine Gap's Signals Processing Office transmitted signals are received and transformed for further analysis.There is a no fly zone 4km around PG, and local land holders have agreed not to allow "visitors" access to there properties. It is said that Pine Gap employs nearly 1000 people, mainly from the CIA and the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

Source:

Jeffrey T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, (Westview Press, 4th ed., 1999)p190

Nicky Hager, Secret Power, New Zealand's role in the internatinal spy network, (Craig Potton, 1996)p34ff

Pictures of Pine Gap

http://www.networx.com.au/home/slider/Pine-Gap.htm

http://www.networx.com.au/home/slider/Pine-Ga...
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Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin was Russian President until the end of 1999. After many years of work for the Communist Party, he joined the Politburo in 1986. His sharp critique on Mikhail Gorbachev forced that one to resign. Yeltsin won the 1990 election into Russian presidency and quit the Communist Party. Quarrels with the Parliament could not destroy his popularity until the secession war with Chechnya. When the Russian economy collapsed in 1998, he dismissed his entire government. In the end the sick old man of Russian politics had lost all his popularity as a president and resigned for the benefit of his political son Vladimir Putin.

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