TorrentFreak Email Update

Australian Pirate Party Sets Course for Parliament

Posted: 10 Jun 2012 01:18 AM PDT

aussie pp In a mere six years, Sweden’s nascent Pirate Party (Piratpartiet) has grown from fringe group into a potent global political force.

Some libertarian movements echo aspects of the Pirate Party’s agenda, mainly its advocacy of free speech and open government. Other political groups, such as the European founded Greens, touch on elements of the party’s progressive thinking.

But the Pirate Party stands alone in driving a holistic vision of an information-based society, governed by principles of transparency in business and government while protecting the privacy of individuals.

Despite the common misconception, the legally protected torrenting of Hollywood’s latest blockbuster is not the party’s goal.

Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge, a frequent contributor to Torrentfreak, envisions a society comfortable in its new-found abilities to communicate horizontally. In a 2006 speech given during the first wave of attacks against perennially resilient torrent site, the Pirate Bay, Falkvinge declared copyright industries and hostile political forces could never hope to force the file-sharing genie back into the bottle.

"Yes, we’re pirates. But one who thinks being a pirate is a shame is mistaken. It’s something we’re proud of," Falkvinge said.

"Because we’ve already seen what it means to be without central control. We’ve already tasted, felt and smelled the freedom of being without a central monopoly of culture and knowledge. We’ve already learnt to read and write – and we’re not about to forget how to read and write, just because it’s not fit in the eyes of the media of the yesteryear."

The Pirate Party’s swift global expansion since those heady days of 2006 has finally come to Australia’s capital, a tiny city-state unimaginatively titled the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The city itself is named Canberra, taken from the local people’s language, which means simply, "meeting place."

Canberra represents a rare opportunity for the Australian wing of the Pirate Party – no other electorate contains such a unique set of factors that, when combined, deliver the party a genuine shot at gaining its first parliamentary representation in Australia.

Victory is by no means certain. The party faces many challenges, such as finding the right candidates and overcoming internal growth pains. Yet Canberra’s use of a proportional voting system combined with a progressive leaning population makes it fertile grounds for the new movement.

A democratic barrier exists in many parts of the world, blocking small parties and independents from electoral success. This barrier is most pronounced in countries like the United States. The US voting system gives enormous power to entrenched contenders and tends to crystallise democratic representation into the hands of just two groups. In practical terms, Democrats and Republicans reign supreme. So-called "third party candidates" are regularly shut out of the process because they have no chance of being elected.

European parliaments are often very different, generally favouring proportional voting. It is because of these systems that smaller and newer parties, such as the Greens, and more recently the Pirate Party itself, have been able to enter parliaments and influence governments.

Various Australian state, territory and federal parliaments employ a dizzying array of different voting systems.

Canberra has its own small parliament, served by a tiny electorate of a just few hundred thousand, yet its legislature enjoys all the constitutional powers of an Australian state government. Canberra also employs a modified proportional voting system, which has delivered a range of different parties and candidates into the local legislative assembly since it first came into existence in 1989. Currently, a "candy-cane" alliance of Greens and the union-movement based Labor Party form government. Canberra is due to hold its elections later this year.

"The drive for creating an ACT branch of Pirate Party Australia was [the] election due in October," ACT Pirate Party spokesman Stuart Biggs told Torrentfreak.

"The proportional representational system that the ACT uses is similar to the representational systems in Europe where Pirate Parties have already seen electoral success, so it stands to reason that it’s a good place for Pirate Party Australia to focus it’s attention in these early stages," Biggs said.

Biggs and his Pirate Party colleagues are currently engaged in a membership drive for the new ACT branch. Since launching two weeks ago, they have garnered a quarter of the one hundred Canberra-based members needed by June 30 to register as an official party.

The political establishment in Canberra is unlikely to view the Pirate Party as any kind of real electoral threat. The local voting population is notoriously wedded to the public-service friendly Labor Party, which currently rules at both a local and federal level.

But Australian style democracy is a strange beast by world standards. The final piece of the puzzle involves compulsory voting. Australia is one of the few countries in the world to force all adult citizens to vote, regardless of whether they have any knowledge of (, or even an interest in,) politics. Combine that with proportional voting, a known love of piracy, a progressive electorate and the words "Pirate Party" on the ballot sheet, and Canberra may just deliver the establishment a surprise come October.

About The Author

Myles Peterson was on the periphery of the Melbourne Underground in the early 90s, sharing games that were unavailable or censored in Australia. Peterson’s former employers include the Departments of Prime Minister & Cabinet, Environment and Health, law firm Mallesons and most recently Fairfax Media where he was a journalist.

Follow @mylespeterson

Source: Australian Pirate Party Sets Course for Parliament

Free Anonymous Usenet Downloading With Just a Web Browser

Posted: 09 Jun 2012 06:13 AM PDT

It’s a battle that’s been running in some people’s minds for the last decade. What’s better for downloading – BitTorrent or Usenet?

Chances are, most people reading this post will have used BitTorrent and will have a good idea how it works and what its benefits are. Top of the list for many will be the fact that it’s completely free to use. Others will point to the huge libraries of content and the not-too-punishing learning curve to get started.

Usenet users, on the other hand, will enthuse about the speeds of the newsgroups. They will boast how content stays live for years and how their chosen download method has superior privacy and security when compared to P2P.

In reality, most people won’t have any experience with Usenet and as a result won’t have struggled with the steep learning curve and probably never will. Because unlike BitTorrent, Usenet is not free, so this obstacle is a deal-breaker for the credit card-less. That said, if you’ve never tested Usenet because the cost and learning curve has put you off, today’s your lucky day.

A new service from UsenetStorm reduces the complexity of Usenet downloading by providing access to binary content through a standard web-browser. Best of all, the entry-level service is completely free of charge.

“The main reason for creating UsenetStorm was to offer Usenet binary downloads through HTTP, since file lockers are getting more restrictive and torrent users are being targeted by weak Government puppets,” UsenetStorm owner William Thomas told TorrentFreak.

“Even though UsenetStorm launched its first beta 3 years ago, it’s taken a lot of time and investment to be able to offer the service we do today. Usenet has a lot of content to offer but its gone largely unnoticed over the years. By offering Usenet as SaaS (Software as a Service) we’re trying to bring Usenet in to the modern ‘web 2.0′ world.”

Regular Usenet providers require a user to run a software client in order to grab content via NZB files (think .torrent files for Usenet), but with UsenetStorm the whole thing is done through a simple web interface.

Additionally, even when traditional companies offer a free Usenet trial they still require users to register their credit cards, a huge problem for those who don’t have one. UsenetStorm’s basic service is completely free, no strings.

“The only restriction for free users is 500mb per NZB file and download speeds are capped at 5mbit. Usage is unlimited to everyone without registration,” William adds.

What this means is if you want to download a release from Usenet that’s bigger than 500mb, each NZB file you create will need to link to a maximum of 500mb of files. You can, however, make as many as you like.

Basic Tutorial – Making an NZB file and downloading content.

For this you’ll need a suitable Usenet search engine – NZBIndex.nl or Binsearch.info will do just fine. The latter is less cluttered but the former shows the size of each file to download, useful when keeping within the 500mb limit of UsenetStorm.

So, we searched Binsearch for ‘Dan Bull’ and came across his Mass Effect release, shown below.

As you can see, we’ve ticked the box to say that’s the collection of files we want to download. Next, simply click the ‘Create NZB’ button on the site and Binsearch will send you an .NZB file which, like a .torrent file, ‘points’ to the data we want to download, in this case Dan’s music.

Now, we head back to UsenetStorm. Click ‘Choose File’ and browse to the hard drive location containing the .NZB file sent to us by Binsearch.

Then, simply click ‘Download’ and UsenetStorm will grab the files you want from Usenet and store them on its own servers.

When the big button appears saying “Go To Download” – click it – and then click the final ‘Download’ button.

UsenetStorm will then send you the files you asked for, all wrapped up in a single ZIP file which you’ll need to unpack. And that’s it. If you want any more files, simply head back to the first step and repeat.

While the technicalities of PAR files are outside the scope of this article, advanced Usenet users might be interested to know that they are all handled on the UsenetStorm servers. On the other hand, those new to Usenet can be relieved that with UsenetStorm PAR files aren’t needed.

On the privacy front and in addition to all the usual newsgroup security, the only information gathered for unrestricted UsenetStorm premium accounts is an email address and heavily encrypted password. IP addresses are not stored and SSL downloads will come along in the near future.

Overall, UsenetStorm offers a very nice service for people to test out Usenet for free to see if it’s for them. More experienced users might feel more at home getting their hands dirty with a standard Usenet provider and tools like SABnzbd, but for ease of use this is difficult to beat.

We forgot the first rule of Usenet again – sorry

Source: Free Anonymous Usenet Downloading With Just a Web Browser

The Pirate's Press

Sunday, 10 June 2012