Gridlock News provides links to source documents published today by Wired Magazine. The documents detail (down to the wiring detail) how the NSA & AT&T rigged up a ’secret room’ in multiple locations around the country to read internet traffic including messages, emails and surfing activity.

Whistleblower Mark Klein, not covered by the Gag order impacting the EFF, AT&T and the NSA provided copies of the evidence he gave to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which can be read by you now!

click here ->Gridlock News: Read NSA Spying Documents from Whistleblower

here’s a picture of one of the previously secret rooms

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The RIAA is going after one of its largest paying customers, XM Radio. The RIAA claims that XM’s new product under the Inno name is too much like an MP3 player or an MP3 recorder and therefore is not covered under XM’s current arrangement whereby XM pays to broadcast music. The music industry wanted XM to pay a similar rate such as is imposed on Apple and Sirius (XM’s largest competitor) for the download of music in addition to the broadcast. XM feels that the recording industry is trying to double charge its customers, who pay $12.95 per month and under XM’s vision would not have to pay for a download.

“The lawsuit seeks $150,000 in damages for every song copied by XM Satellite customers using the devices, which went on sale weeks ago. The company said it played 160,000 different songs every month.” This quote out of the New York Times is slightly out of context as XM does state that it broadcasts 160,000 songs each month, but does not say how many songs are being recorded onto these devices.

XM has apparently ruffled some feathers with one of its most important partners, the RIAA. XM had attempted to play nice with the RIAA, this lawsuit seems to indicate a severe breakdown between the partners. Maven Mapper’s next line of inquiry will be to review XM’s financials and compare them to Sirius who by recent accounts has agreed to pay the RIAA the fees they seek.

Its curious that Sirius has accepted this and XM has fought it now all the way to court.

Recording Industry Sues XM Satellite Radio - New York Times

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The uproar today out of Washington comes from the revelation that the NSA has been collecting phone records of every day Americans since shortly after September 11th without anyone’s public knowledge as the event has been highly classified.

ABC Channel 7 in Chicago describes the information provided with the following analogy, “That printout of your phone calls that many Chicago area consumers get each month is the same one that also goes to the government in a database that has charted hundreds of millions of calls. ”

The NSA appears to be working under a potential legal loophole. A court order would be required to allow the NSA to listen to the actual phone conversation, however a court order is not required for them to request phone records.

Reports describe Billions of phone records turned over to the government for “tens of millions” of customers in some reports and “over 200 million” customers in other reports. These are domestic phone bills of US Citizens and businesses.
ABC7Chicago.com: NSA collection of billions of phone records sparks uproar

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The Beatles will appeal to a higher court regarding their recent loss to Apple Computer. There are two reasons for the appeal. 1. The Beatles’s Apple Corps has gone this far and still has a chance to convince a higher court that this decision misses the mark. A successful appeal could bring millions in damages. 2. The appeal has already successfully delayed Apple Corps requirement to pay Apple Computer’s legal bills for the first case.

Or to sum up the tactics, The Beatles are using offense as a defense.
“Apple Computer’s request for its costs to be paid now was denied pending the outcome of the appeal. ‘The stakes are still high,’ said Curtis. ‘If Apple Computer loses this war of words at appeal, it is likely that Apple Corps would obtain significant damages for past iTunes use, plus the legal tab.’” from Beatles’ label to appeal iTunes verdict

This battle has not helped The Beatles reputation with the Mac Generation. Mac Loyalists are stepping out in full fource to decry the 60’s era group and their company. The backlash is reminiscent of Metallica’s push to stop illegal downloads of their own music several years ago.

Sometimes bands, which are a form of business, turn off fans as they are forced to protect their corporate property. However, when you have billionaires on either side of a battle whether its in the music industry, oil industry, or drug industry, public perception is usually not a significant concern, principles get inflated as the harbingers of the estates focus on protecting the principle assets of the estate for generations to come.

I suspect The Beatles may have faired better in this endeavor if they had avoided the courts and fought off the attack on their trademark in the medium they knew best, public protest and music. This was not possible as The Beatles were did not operate as a united front after the band broke up and after the deaths of 2 of the its members.

The truth of the situation is that the world is getting very crowded with people and running out of trademarkable options. This is present everywhere from trademark to corporate brands to internet domains. The current laws both domestic and world wide are not keeping up with a growing world wide population of people and companies.

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The full judgement in the case of Apple Corps v Apple Computer is available to be read in full below. Apple Computer bested Apple Corps in a UK court this morning. Apple Corps will have to pay legal bills for Apple computer which total about $2m.

Apple Corps, owned by The Beatles, is known for its willingness to wage corporate war, and is planning to appeal the decision.

So we can expect to see more of this fight between these two groups of billionairs in the not too distant future.

Apple Corps v Apple Computer: judgment in full - Law - Times Online: “Apple Corps v Apple Computer: judgment in full

Neutral Citation Number: [2006] EWHC 996 (Ch)
Case No: HC03C02428″

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Republished from Distribution Business Articles Site under Perils of Business 2 Busienss Credit Card Processing

During a routine audit of credit card transactions, relatively small dollar frauds from credit card transactions are sometimes found.This sometimes can be part of a larger pattern.

Apparently, the small time (assuming they are small time) fraudsters that put credit card transactions through a system realize that the targeted company may have identified their business names, addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers or several other identifying characteristics.  They realize that we are highly dependent on computer systems to screen the incoming data for these unique characteristics.  

Here is where they get a little smart.

Basically, they routinely submit and resubmit these small dollar orders with many variations of names, addresses, phone numbers etc.  Sometimes the change can be as small as including an extra space ‘ ‘ between an address or company title

for example
1 short street
1  short street
1 short  street
1 s hort street
1   short  street

etc.

Obviously, given the vast array of techniques that money launderers and fraudsters utilize this is just one more way that they can through a random variable at our systems and prevent the detection of their fraud.

Fraud auditing and Business Intelligence tools today are available that not only screen for common names and addresses and screen for different degrees of variation of each.  It takes a lot of computing power to aggressively take into account all of the permutations available for a fraudster altering names, locations, and phone numbers all at once and carrying out this same fraud at multiple locations probably with dollar amounts ranging all over the place.  

Consider the implications of a higher power or organization that has controls of thousands of fraudsters with many names and businesses and addresses and even many mules that can deposit or carry out transactions all over the world.

The situation moves out of the credit card realm and into the universe of Money laundering and anti-money laundering.

If one looks at this as a military group would or an encryption specialist, it is probable that a certain degree of control needs to be exercised for the launderer/fraudster controlling group to keep a handle on what is really going on.  

Security/encryption keys could be used and probably are (hope I’m not giving ideas on how to wrong but how to stop it).  For example, in the military a person would be given an identification nomenclature.  

Whenever the person sends out a message they go through certain channels or predetermined communication methods.  The thing is they don’t want the other side to know who is sending the message so they change their nomenclature on a regular basis (daily, weekly, monthly etc.)  All of their communications should be encrypted and when a wily person or computer program comes along and happens to break this code they end up finding some possibly useful information, but they do not know who it is coming from or who it is going to (because the parties refer to each other given the nomenclature assigned for that time period.  

So let’s say the program or person is really smart or lucky and happens to figure out that the nomenclature abc stands for John Smith.  Well more than likely the next day the transmissions if decoded will not refer to abc at all.  John Smith will have switched to the new nomenclature assigned for that day maybe xyz or 123 or something else.  

Now it is time for the program or person to basically find out every nomenclature in use by the entity they are trying to track on any given day (maybe they rotate in cycles of a year, month, week or something).  So lets say they are really good and they find out what John Smiths nomenclature is for every day of a 30 day period and that it starts over at the beginning of the next 30 day period.  Great now they will always know who is sending what to whom.

Unless John Smith, gets wise to the notion that somebody has broken their code and nomenclature.  He sends out word that the code is a bust and every body up and switches all the encryption and nomenclature to a completely fresh code.

This is where business intelligence job security derives.

A company witnessing minor frauds or multiple frauds, might only see the tip of an evasive iceberg.  They could potentially be looking at a group that is running not only a rotating nomenclature of false names, businesses and addresses, but they are also keeping these false nomenclatures live and undetected by inserting random misspellings and spaces to throw off our fraud detection filters!

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It will likely be the end of the month, before we find out which Apple will rule the world! The Beatles, Apple Corps or Apple Computer, which according to testimony provided by The Beatles road manager this week, received its name when Steve Jobs allegedyl took the name off of a Beatles record. I guess Sgt. Pepper’s lonely Heart’s Club Computer Company just didn’t have the same ring. Meanwhile, there have been no reports that a Yellow waterproof Ipod shaped like an oval will actually be coined a Subpod.

InformationWeek Online Music Apple Pushes Into New Music Area While Fighting Beatles April 6, 2006:

“U.K. High Court Justice Edward Mann said he is unlikely to decide the case before Easter but is likely to issue a decision by the end of April.”

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The trial has started and this promises to be an interesting battle. The Independent (below) indicates that Steve Jobs had offered to purchase the name “Apple Corps” from The Beatles before the introduction of the Itunes store. The offer was refused, and Apple Computer later decided it was cheaper to fight it out in court rather than settle.

Independent Online Edition > Legal: “One analyst has estimated that Apple Computer would have to pay 60m pounds to settle the case.”

Compare this to the $1b in revenue that Apple Computer has earned from Itunes and Steve Jobs might have wished that he’d settled before this is all over. Afterall, Itunes would never have launched without the Apple brand name behind it, as so many failed MP3 offerings that came before and after can prove.

To put this in perspective, do you think McDonalds would litigate against a company that used the golden arches with a bite taken out of it as a logo for a Steak Burger joint? Do you think McDonalds would win? Well that’s basically what Apple Computer is up against.

At the end of the day, Steve Jobs may have some difficulty getting the apple peel out from between his teeth. . .

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As a follow up to a previous post, “Apple versus Apple: Direct Comparison” regarding the face off between Apple Computer and The Beatles, it would appear that Apple computer is in a poor position according to sources quoted in Information Week below.

InformationWeek Apple iTunes Beatles Say ‘Apple’ Is Forbidden Fruit March 29, 2006: “Thomas Speiss, of Baker & Hostetler in Los Angeles, said that three of the most important factors in deciding intellectual property rights appear to be in the music company’s favor. The factors likely to weigh most heavily in determining whether Steve Jobs’ company has infringed on the Apple music company’s name, logo and territory are: the similarity of the marks, the relatedness of goods and services and the similarity of marketing channels.

‘It’s a slam dunk for the Beatles,’ Speiss said during an interview Wednesday. ‘”

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