LG Manual Details Piracy…

LG may well find itself in some trouble with studios after its user manuals were found to contain details of how to watch illegally downloaded material on LG’s hardware.

Seems like a bit of a misstep...

The whole kafuffle stems from the release of a line of HDTV’s from LG that boast USB ports, allowing users to plug external storage directly into their displays and watch any content that they’ve got stored on those drives directly on their LG TV. Of course, the assumption might be that such content has been legally obtained, but LG’s own manual doesn’t seem too fussy, showing pirated content in its diagrams of the functionality.

PlayStation 3 Hack Released

It seems that the recently revealed hack for Sony’s PlayStation 3 has now been released to the web at large through the medium of the hacker, George “Geohot” Hotz’, blog.

With many questioning the veracity of Hotz’ claim that he had managed to hack the PlayStation 3, or simply to what extent that hack might be useful, it seems that the most sensible move would be to simply release the hack into the wild and see just what the community at large can do with it. Still, it’s well worth keeping in mind that this is the same man who originally managed to hack the iPhone.

Perhaps the most detailed (without being so complex as to be practically incomprehensible) writeup on the first exploit to hit the PS3 has come from Eurogamer.net, which quickly points out that,

Mass Effect 2 Sees Vast Pre-Release Piracy

It seems that Bioware’s upcoming sequel to its hit science-fiction RPG, Mass Effect, has been leaked to bittorrent sites, with many users rushing to illegally download the game before its release.

Mass Effect feels the mass downloading effect

Word comes via TorrentFreak of the leak, which has apparently resulted in an inordinate amount of illegal downloads. Indeed, the figure was initially reported to be “more than 300,000” to be somewhere in the process of downloading or having already downloaded the game illegally. This is thanks, in no small part, to the fact that the first Mass Effect game managed to win such critical acclaim for itself.

Android App Steals Bank Details

It seems that a rogue android application, downloadable from the Android Market, has been doing the rounds, gaining access to people’s internet banking.

It may not have aged too well, but the Android is still pretty cute

According to the security warning from First Tech Credit Union, the app, developed by Droid09, ‘creates a shell of mobile banking apps that tries to gain access to a consumer’s financial information.’ It’s scary stuff, but it seems that users who have downloaded the app could well have had their details harvested, which is dodgy territory indeed.

Internet Pirates Move Further Afield

It seems that internet pirates have started to move away from countries in which they might be prosecuted, setting up shop in far-flung regions in an attempt to avoid persistent litigation.

Sweden was, for a very long time indeed, host to The Pirate Bay, which became practically iconic for its flaunting of copyright law within Europe. However, after it lost the case brought against it by representatives of the various media publishers losing money because of it, The Pirate Bay hopped from one location to another in a bid to stay open, a move that’s been aped by other major filesharers. Indeed, there’s a bit of a trend among some of the major illegal filesharing operations when it comes to shifting to places they’re less likely to be prosecuted.

France to Disconnect Illegal Downloaders

France’s controversial new law covering the disconnection of internet users found to be guilty of illegally downloading copyrighted material is now in effect.

The Pirate Bay's logo remains the go-to image for piracy news

According to the BBC’s article on the law, those who are found to be illegally downloading content will initially be sent an email to warn them to cease their illicit activities. Those who continue to flaunt the law will be sent a plain-old snail-mail letter to inform them of their position. Should that fail to convince users to stop downloading, they’ll be brought before a judge and face either a fine or potential disconnection.

eBook Piracy Worries Publishers

It seems that the trend towards the adoption of ebook readers has some book publishers worried over the possibility that their content will see illegal piracy on the rise.

Word comes via TorrentFreak that, despite the general lack of bestselling authors in the list of the top 25 most pirated books last year, many publishers seem to fear the ease with which their content might be distributed illegally for the ebook reader-enabled population. Indeed, as a result of their generally small size once digitised, book publishers could potentially have more to fear from piracy than publishers of more data-heavy media.

Top 10 Illegally Downloaded Movies of 2009

While there will always be awards and ceremonies, there are all kinds of ways to see what the top movies of any given year were, not least of which the movies that have been pirated the most.

TorrentFreak has posted a list of the top ten most pirated movies of this year, and while we’ve seen some fairly massive releases over the course of the year, you might be interested to see what did and what didn’t make the big list. So, while the critics are sure to have already decided what the best films of this year were, the list of the top ten most pirated movies is a very democratic one… though those in the movie industry would likely estimate it to be a democracy of thieves.

EU to Offer Pirates More Protection?

The European Parliament is currently weighing up a telecoms reform package that would see users accused of filesharing by ISPs treated a little more fairly than the current situation, which is a little vague.

The BBC is reporting that users accused of illegal filesharing under the new reform package would have to be treated to a “fair and impartial procedure” before they could be disconnected. This is of particular interest now, given the recent announcement that British ISPs would be tasked with disconnecting users guilty of copyright infringement.

Flash Vulnerability Endangers Facebook Data

A Facebook developer has discovered a fairly major issue in the way that both Facebook and MySpace present their apps that could lead to unscrupulous developers having access to all of a user’s data.

Word comes via TechCrunch of the Facebook developer who found the initial exploit, Yvo Schaap, immediately posted about it in his blog, and it was from there that news of the possible exploit spread. The exploit itself takes advantage of the fact that most Facebook users will have their account set to auto-sign-in, using a cookie. It only gets worse when you consider how quickly an exploit taking advantage of that automatic login could spread.