Established in 1998, Agava is one of Russia’s top 5 web hosting companies employing around 300 people. Last night, police investigators arrived at a datacenter where Agava has some of its operations.

The investigators had a self-awarded warrant which allowed them to conduct a search in order to retrieve evidence located on servers used by Agava client iFolder.ru, a large file-hosting service and Russia’s 51st most-visited site

The police had been working on an investigation into an individual who used iFolder to upload child pornography a while ago. The person was caught by the police, but investigators wanted to search to see if he had uploaded more material.

Agava employees offered their full co-operation in assisting them to find the data in question. However, the police turned down the offer and insisted they were going to seize all of Agava’s servers, more than 100 in total, and waited for several hours for a vehicle to come and collect them.

In the end the mass seizure did not take place but police did cut the power and seal them all off. Some of those affected are Agava’s primary DNS servers, but fortunately their secondary units were unaffected.

“Agava considers this unprecedented event as putting in jeopardy and dimming the future of every business in RuNet,” said the company in an announcement. “We are determined to challenge and overcome the excessive and destructive actions we encountered, to protect our customer’s interests. We thank our clients in advance for their patience, and for media and other support they provide us with.”

Even though the police have stated they have no problem with iFolder continuing its operations, the investigation has rendered the site completely non-operational. On a normal day, 180,000 people upload or download from the service resulting in 1.5 million pageviews. Total users per month is around 4.3m.

This action against iFolder follows the unilateral decision to seize the domain name of Russia’s biggest torrent site, Torrents.ru.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Facebook may be denying any wrongdoing, but a California judge is disagreeing with the social networks' disagreement to the tune of a $9.5 million dollar settlement today.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the settlement comes in response to a class-action lawsuit over Facebook's Beacon program that published what users were buying.

Sponsor

The decision allocates $6 million of the settlement to a "digital trust fund" that will go to organizations that study online privacy, says the Times article. The Times explains the bit of controversy hovering around this final decision:

Over the objections of privacy advocates, Facebook will have a seat on the fund's three-member board. It consists of Chris Jay Hoofnagle, who heads the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology; Tim Sparapani, Facebook's public policy director; and writer Larry Magid.

While some people are saying that the settlement is unfair in a few ways, Justin Brookman, a senior resident fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology, seemed to disagree. The general contention has been that Facebook will have one seat on the three-member board for the "digital trust fund" and that it was already required to pay money out to promote online privacy, as our own Sarah Perez discussed when the settlement was first announced last October.

Brookman said that today's decision is "a really good settlement for consumers", explaining that "there are really very few settlements that come up with that type of monetary figure."

He also contended that, while Facebook will have a seat on the board, it will be a minority member, as a majority vote requires two out of the three parties to agree. He said that the other two members, Hoofnagle and Magid, were both good choices who will act in the public's interest.

"We have a lot of confidence they'll make wise awards of the money," he said. "They both criticized Facebook when Beacon came out."

According to the Times, however, this may not be the end of the appeal process.

One privacy advocate said he was exploring whether he could appeal the decision. "This sweetheart deal for Facebook is outrageous and another indication they don't really want to ensure privacy online," said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

Brookman noted, however, that a settlement like this for privacy issues was relatively unprecedented.

Discuss

On Tuesday, March 16, thousands of Nigerians marched on the capital, Abuja, to show their frustration with the woes that continue to besiege the country. This sort of protest has not been a common feature of the Nigerian political scene – at least not in this decade– though this demonstration is one of several that have taken place this year.

The protest was organized by Enough is Enough, a diverse coalition of youth, media, and business leaders. The group marched to the National Assembly building bearing a letter which outlined their demands, four of which they said stand out as requiring “urgent intervention”. Excerpts of the demands are as follow:

1. The Jos situation makes it clear that the Nigerian state is incapable of securing the lives and limbs of its citizens…. We demand an urgent overhaul of the security and intelligence apparatus in our country…

2. The promise of 6000 megawatts was flagrantly broken…. [We] demand that within the month, the government gives a realistic, practical plan to solving this perennial power problem.

3. We also demand that President Yar’Adua should resume, resign or be removed so that Nigerians know who their leaders are…

4. The Uwais report has been lying between the executive and the legislature for months now, and now election timetables have been released… We demand that all its recommendations be passed and implemented before the next elections.

[The Uwais Report is a document containing recommendations for making Nigerian elections fairer and more transparent.]

The coalition's letter emphasized the fact that those under 35 make up 75% of Nigeria's population; it carried a warning for the upcoming election:

We will come out to vote massively this time around, we will be watching closely and we will not leave election centres until all votes are counted. Anyone who rigs elections this time around will have themselves to blame. Young people across the country – from the North to the South – will be coming out in their millions…

The letter concluded:

We grew up hearing ourselves addressed as the “leaders of tomorrow,” and now we have realised that it is time… to take our destinies into our hands if we want to stand any chance of witnessing that much-touted “tomorrow.”

The protest ended relatively peacefully, and was largely declared a success. Olamild gave a play-by-play of the events of the day:

After hours of waiting and chanting, the crowd switched to Plan B Mode - they sat on the bare floor insisting that bankole and mark come out.

[Dimeji Bankole is Speaker of the House of Representatives; David Mark is President of the Senate]

The crowd insisted on seeing who they came for and gave an ultimatum - ” It is either we march into the house by force or you bring Mark or Bankole to come out and speak to us.”

The doors were eventually opened and the youths marched into the house where they encountered 4 layers of hand-locked policemen. Serious pushing was involved but they got in. On getting in, they were told that the House of Assembly officials had escaped through the back door. Protesters were then urged by their leaders to head out and end the rally. Angry Stella Damasus yelled “we can't just go like this. “

[Stella Damasus is a popular Nigerian actress]

The youths were shocked at the act of cowardice displayed by the House of Assembly. “They ran away?? Only one who has done evil will run away at a time like this. We will come back again and the next time we come, we will shut this place down.”

Twitter users Gbengasesan and Bubusn posted pictures of the march, and live footage of the event was available at ustream. The demonstration had an online presence unprecedented in the history of Nigerian protest: Facebook, Twitter, and Nigeria's extensive blogging networks were all mobilized in support of the event (of particular note were the Facebook group Save Nigeria and the demonstration organizers' website Where is Yar'Adua?). Nigerian Curiosity even reported that the hashtag #enoughisenough was the number three trending topic on Twitter (though she pointed out that not all the tweets referred specifically to the demonstration in Abuja).

Many in the online community expressed their support for the marchers. Jcsgrl, a commenter on Bella Naija's post about the protest, articulated many people's thoughts when she wrote:

This is quite new to us Nigerians. We’re not known to protest. We sit back and let things happen to us. Perhaps, the fear of military leadership still rules our life. Give it time...be patient. Keep building momentum and developing a grassroots mentality. We’ll get it together one day. In the mean time, don’t ever give up hope and don’t ever stop fighting for what you believe in. I support this group 100%. Just hope the fight doesn’t end there.

Demiji, commenting on Imnakoya's post, had a similar view:

I’m proud my people have found a new zeal to pursue their demands, how I wish I could be part of this historic moment!

Tolu Ogunlesi wrote of his reasons for protesting:

This sorry state of our country has left an interesting side effect. It has turned us all into comedians, people for whom no lemon is too unripe to be turned into lemonade, for whom absurdity is an instant ‘open-sesame’ for verbal ingenuity. We have made jokes about everything; composed ballads for President Yardie, turned “Turai” and “Mutallab” into verbs; and wondered why, after having a president who suffered kidney failure, we now have an acting president afflicted by “liver failure.”

Increasingly, however, we are realising that it is time to move on, to go beyond Concern, and Comedy, and make our way into the uncharted territories of Commitment. It is dawning on us that it is not enough to be Angry Young Men and Women, trapped in the online factories of Twitter and Facebook assembling jokes and status updates from our ever-increasing frustrations.

We need all the support we can get. So, if you are young, or young at heart, and think it is time to say ENOUGHISENOUGH, to electoral malpractice, to power failure, to fuel scarcity, to the cabals in high places, and to whatever else you may think of, let’s start in Abuja on Tuesday March 16, 2010.

Not all observers were unequivocally optimistic. Imnakoya wrote that he admired the protesters energy and commitment:

They are the ones in the trenches and up against the brutality of the security forces. Putting their bodies at risk and investing their time to make a case for the general well being of Nigerians is a noble task, and I doff my hat!

But he was skeptical of their demands. He outlined his reasoning as follows:

The removal/resumption/retirement of Mr. Yar’Adua is no longer critical at this stage of event in Nigeria. What is important is having in place constitutional measures that will prevent similar occurrences in the future. Let’s deal with the issue of transparency, the root cause of the problem.

We could have asked for the establishment of regional/local/ industrial parks nationwide with 20-24 hrs of electrical power (and other necessary amnesties) where businesses can set up shop and engage in symbiotic existence. Nigeria does not need power 24-7 nationwide at this point, just guarantee power to the industrial and production centers! Ending the five-month scarcity is easy, just get more ships to bring in more fuel! But this is not the solution to the problem...

Oil refinement must be done locally, and open to the private sector involvement. Three refineries are too few to handle the demands of Nigerians and her nearby neighbors! Rid the sector of politics and see how quick a turn-around will happen. Have each geo-political zone own and operate a refinery.

Solomonsydelle was similarly skeptical:

Will any of these demands be fulfilled by the end of March? A reasonable thinking person familiar with Nigeria would be foolish to say yes. There were promises made to my grandparents generation that are yet to be fulfilled by the Nigerian federal government. And for that reason, I personally would be seeking more than a plan when it comes to the second demand concerning electricity. Despite this, I feel that this protest is a step in the right direction for Nigerian democracy, as it is crucial for citizens to express themselves even when the consequences could be dire.

Fox News' Marc Siegel said he believed the findings of a 3-month-old email survey which found that 46 percent of primary care physicians would consider leaving their profession if health care reform passes despite the survey's questionable methodology because its findings were similar to a September 2009 Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll. However, Fox News previously acknowledged that the IDB/TIPP poll was also "not scientific," and statistician Nate Silver stated that the poll was "simply not credible."

Siegel uses "not scientific" IBD/TIPP poll to prop up unscientific Medicus Firm survey

From the March 17 edition of Fox News' America Live:

MEGYN KELLY (ANCHOR): Well, the health care survey conducted back in December is getting some new attention today. It shed some light on how some medical professionals feel about the president's plan to reform the health care system. According to the survey which was conducted by The Medicus Firm, which is a national physician search firm, almost half of doctors who participated say they will either be forced to leave or will want to quit the medical profession if this bill actually passes. Joining us now for a fair debate, Dr. Kathleen London, a family practician, and Dr. Marc Siegel, a member of our Fox news medical a-team. Good afternoon, doctors.

[...]

So this, we're just being told that actually the New England Journal of Medicine, which was originally responsible for posting, not publishing, not conducting the survey, but for posting it on its web site later removed it. It's not a scientific poll, it's a survey, but does it bear any truth in your experience?

[...]

KELLY: Dr. Siegel, do you accept -- do you agree that this survey probably doesn't represent how most doctors feel about this overhaul?

DR. MARC SIEGEL: No, Megyn I don't agree. First of all, there were 1,200 physicians that were surveyed here, and it also reflected what was found in an IBS/TIPP poll that was done back in September where Investors Business Daily also surveyed over a thousand physicians.

Siegel was referring to a September 2009 IBD/TIPP poll which found that 45 percent of practicing physicians would consider leaving their practice if health care reform were passed.

But IBD/TIPP poll's credibility previously refuted by Fox News, Silver

Nate Silver: Poll is "simply not credible." In a September 16 post to his blog FiveThirtyEight.com, Silver listed five reasons why the IBD poll should be "completely ignore[d]":

1. The survey was conducted by mail, which is unusual. The only other mail-based poll that I'm aware of is that conducted by the Columbus Dispatch, which was associated with an average error of about 7 percentage points -- the highest of any pollster that we tested.

2. At least one of the questions is blatantly biased: "Do you believe the government can cover 47 million more people and it will cost less money and th quality of care will be better?". Holy run-on-sentence, Batman? A pollster who asks a question like this one is not intending to be objective.

3. As we learned during the Presidntial campaign -- when, among other things, they had John McCain winning the youth vote 74-22 -- the IBD/TIPP polling operation has literally no idea what they're doing. I mean, literally none. For example, I don't trust IBD/TIPP to have competently selected anything resembling a random panel, which is harder to do than you'd think.

4. They say, somewhat ambiguously: "Responses are still coming in." This is also highly unorthodox. Professional pollsters generally do not report results before the survey period is compete.

5. There is virtually no disclosure about methodology. For example, IBD doesn't bother to define the term "practicing physician", which could mean almost anything. Nor do they explain how their randomization procedure worked, provide the entire question battery, or anything like that.

Silver added: "There are pollsters out there that have an agenda but are highly competent, and there are pollsters that are nonpartisan but not particularly skilled. Rarely, however, do you find the whole package: that special pollster which is both biased and inept. IBD/TIPP is one of the few exceptions."

Fox News itself acknowledged that the poll is "not scientific." During Neil Cavuto's discussion of the IBD/TIPP poll on the September 16 edition of Fox News' Your World, the on-screen graphic indicated that the poll was "not scientific":

The Medicus Firm's survey was a promotional document for firm, used unscientific methodology

The Medicus Firm - a medical recruiting firm -- conducted the survey in December 2009. The Medicus Firm, a Dallas- and Atlanta-based firm that recruits and places physicians in jobs, was responsible for conducting the survey. It issued a press release about the results on December 17, 2009. A report written by the Medicus Firm subsequently appeared in Recruiting Physicians Today, an employment newsletter produced by Massachusetts Medical Society, "the publishers of the New England Journal of Medicine." The report also appeared on the NEJM "CareerCenter" website, but was taken down on March 17.

Methodology consisted of emailing doctors in the Medicus Firm's database. The NEJM CareerCenter article indicated that "[t]he survey sample was randomly selected from a physician database of thousands. The database has been built over the past eight years by The Medicus Firm (formerly Medicus Partners and The MD Firm) from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, public directories, purchased lists, practice inquiries, training programs, and direct mail responses. The survey was conducted via emails sent directly to physicians."

Survey write-up was essentially a promotional document for the firm. After discussing the results of its survey, Medicus touted the importance of physician recruitment firms "[a]fter health reform is passed and implemented":

What does this mean for physician recruiting? It's difficult to predict with absolute certainty, but one consequence is inevitable. After health reform is passed and implemented, physicians will be more in demand than ever before. Shortages could be exacerbated further beyond the predictions of industry analysts. Therefore, the strongest physician recruiters and firms will be in demand. Additionally, hospitals and practices may be forced to rely on unprecedented recruitment methods to attract and retain physicians. "Health reform, even if it's passed in a most diluted form, could be a game-changer for physician recruitment," said Bob Collins, managing partner of The Medicus Firm in Texas. "As competitive as the market is now, we may not even be able to comprehend how challenging it will become after health reform takes effect."

Fox News pushed both dubious survey and poll

Fox pushed Medicus survey, falsely attributed it to New England Journal of Medicine. Several Fox News personalities highlighted the dubious survey and falsely attributed it to the credible New England Journal of Medicine. 

Fox ran wild with "not scientific" IBD poll.  Numerous Fox News media figures highlighted the IBD/TIPP poll, even after Fox News had described it as "not scientific."

 

Conservative media figures and outlets have falsely claimed a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) survey found that 46 percent of primary care physicians would consider leaving their profession if Democrats' health care reform bill passes. In fact, NEJM says that the 3-month-old email "survey" was not published in or conducted by NEJM.

NEJM spokeswoman confirms: Survey has nothing to do with the "original research" published in The New England Journal of Medicine

Media Matters for America contacted The New England Journal of Medicine and received confirmation from spokesperson Jennifer Zeis that the study had "nothing to do with the New England Journal of Medicine's original research." Zeis also made clear that the study "was not published by the New England Journal of Medicine."

The Medicus Firm, a medical recruitment firm, conducted the survey

The Medicus Firm conducted the survey in December 2009. The Medicus Firm, a Dallas- and Atlanta-based firm that recruits and places physicians in jobs, was responsible for conducting the survey. It issued a press release about the results on December 17, 2009.

Article actually appeared in employment newsletter. The report appeared in Recruiting Physicians Today, an employment newsletter produced by Massachusetts Medical Society, "the publishers of the New England Journal of Medicine." The report also appeared on the NEJM "CareerCenter" website, but was taken down on March 17. Zeis also said that this article "was written by The Medicus Firm." Both versions of the write-up clearly indicate that the source for the survey is The Medicus Firm and provide contact information for its media relations department.

NEJM CareerCenter website: "Recruiting Physicians Today is a free advertiser newsletter," and the survey report represents opinions "of The Medicus Firm only." The report written by The Medicus Firm about its survey appeared on the NEJM CareerCenter website, which "offers a full suite of physician job searching tools," and "provides physician-employment articles in the resource center, offering helpful articles on physician careers, physician job-hunting tips, physician employment trends and more." The report was taken down from the CareerCenter on March 17 and replaced with the following message:

Recruiting Physicians Today is a free advertiser newsletter published by the Worldwide Advertising Sales and Marketing Department in the publishing division of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Each issue of the newsletter features research and content produced by physician recruiting firms and other independent groups involved in physician employment.

On December 17, 2009 The Medicus Firm, a national physician search firm based in Dallas and Atlanta, published the results of a survey they conducted with 1,000 physicians regarding their attitudes toward health reform. To read their survey results at The Medicus Firm website, click here.

The opinions expressed in the article linked to above represent those of The Medicus Firm only. That article does not represent the opinions of the New England Journal of Medicine or the Massachusetts Medical Society.

Methodology involved emailing doctors in The Medicus Firm's database. The NEJM CareerCenter article indicated that "[t]he survey sample was randomly selected from a physician database of thousands. The database has been built over the past eight years by The Medicus Firm (formerly Medicus Partners and The MD Firm) from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, public directories, purchased lists, practice inquiries, training programs, and direct mail responses. The survey was conducted via emails sent directly to physicians."

In "survey" write-up, physician recruitment firm touted the importance of physician recruitment firms "[a]fter health reform is passed and implemented." After discussing the results of its "survey," the article added:

What does this mean for physician recruiting? It's difficult to predict with absolute certainty, but one consequence is inevitable. After health reform is passed and implemented, physicians will be more in demand than ever before. Shortages could be exacerbated further beyond the predictions of industry analysts. Therefore, the strongest physician recruiters and firms will be in demand. Additionally, hospitals and practices may be forced to rely on unprecedented recruitment methods to attract and retain physicians. "Health reform, even if it's passed in a most diluted form, could be a game-changer for physician recruitment," said Bob Collins, managing partner of The Medicus Firm in Texas. "As competitive as the market is now, we may not even be able to comprehend how challenging it will become after health reform takes effect."

Media falsely attribute survey to The New England Journal of Medicine

Bill O'Reilly: Survey was "published by The New England Journal of Medicine, a prestigious magazine." On the March 16 edition of his Fox News show, Bill O'Reilly said, "A new survey published by The New England Journal of Medicine, a prestigious magazine, says that nearly half of primary care doctors in America could leave the medical profession if Obamacare is passed." After citing statistics from The Medicus Firm survey, O'Reilly said, "I believe the study in The New England Journal of Medicine, because I've talked to enough doctors myself to know there's no great enthusiasm for Obamacare in the medical community, even here in liberal New York City."

Kilmeade: NEJM "published a report and did a survey" that found doctors "feel reform will force them out." On the March 17 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said: "Well, if this does in fact pass, no matter how it does pass, what would it mean for the medical profession, those who spend so much money, oftentimes go way in debt, just to be doctors for you, not to be rich. You don't do the -- you don't become a doctor to be rich, you know, now especially. How do they feel about it? Well, The New England Journal of Medicine has published a report and did a survey, and they said the impact of reform on primary care physicians, 46 percent, they say, feel reform will force them out or make them want to leave medicine."

HotAir.com: NEJM "polled health-care providers." On HotAir.com, blogger Ed Morrissey wrote: "And you thought wait times were long now. The New England Journal of Medicine, hardly a bastion of conservative thought, polled health-care providers to determine their reaction to ObamaCare, and discovered that it has many doctors looking for the exits. Almost half of all general-practice doctors would feel compelled to leave medicine altogether if it passes."

Hannity guest attributes study to NEJM. On the March 16 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity asked Milton Wolf, a radiologist who says he is President Obama's second cousin, "Will this plan that they're now pushing, and I think in a very corrupt way, do you believe this will harm and -- if you believe so, how greatly will it harm our health care system?" Wolf replied: "We just learned from The New England Journal of Medicine that a significant percentage of doctors would consider leaving -- seriously consider leaving the profession if this went through. We will actually have less providers if this went through to try to take on these extra burdens, and there would be no choice but to ration care. They've already built it into this plan."

Marc Siegel: "A new study in The New England Journal of Medicine says that one-third of physicians would consider quitting or retiring early if this goes through." On the March 16 edition of Fox News' Your World, Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel stated: "First of all, the [American Medical Association] is a bureaucratic organization that doesn't represent practicing doctors. A new study in The New England Journal of Medicine says that one-third of physicians would consider quitting or retiring early if this goes through."