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DoJ Agrees: IP Enforcement Bill is a Bad Idea
,----[ Quote ]
| the Department of Justice has limited resources to dedicate to particular
| issues, and civil enforcement actions would occur at the expense of criminal
| actions, which only the Department of Justice may bring. In an era of fiscal
| responsibility, the resources of the Department of Justice should be used for
| the public benefit, not on behalf of particular industries that can avail
| themselves of the existing civil enforcement provisions.
`----
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/09/doj-agrees-ip-enforcement-bill-bad-idea
State attorneys general push online child safety snake oil
,----[ Quote ]
| Won't someone think of the children?
|
| Given the intense political pressure to do something about child safety
| online, and a complete lack of proven, peer-reviewed, and abuse-resistant
| technologies available on the market, a number of private companies have
| stepped in to fill the void--with products that can at best be described as
| ineffective, and at worst as snake oil.
|
| [....]
|
| The elephant in the room in this debate is the issue of foreign Internet
| companies. That is, if American social-networking sites are forced to
| implement oppressive and burdensome age verification rules, teens may ditch
| MySpace and head to a Chinese, Brazilian, or Indian Web company, where a
| user's age is not verified.
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-10048583-46.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Also the perfect excuse behind insertion of filtering equipment (for politics)
into the system.
Recent:
Comcast, NetZero latest providers to bow to Cuomo's Usenet campaign
,----[ Quote ]
| But in reality, Cuomo's pressure tactics have misfired. They led Time Warner
| Cable to pull the plug on some 100,000 Usenet discussion groups, including
| such hotbeds of illicit content as talk.politics and
| misc.activism.progressive. Verizon Communications deleted such unlawful
| discussion groups as us.military, ny.politics, alt.society.labor-unions, and
| alt.politics.democrats. AT&T and Time Warner Cable have taken similar steps.
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10002624-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Verizon offers details of Usenet deletion: alt.* groups, others gone
,----[ Quote ]
| Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups--out of
| roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist. In a press release, he took credit for
| the companies' blunderbuss-style newsgroup removal by saying: "We are
| attacking this problem by working with Internet service providers...I commend
| the companies that have stepped up today to embrace a new standard of
| responsibility, which should serve as a model for the entire industry."
|
| [...]
|
| What this means in practice is that, thanks to the New York state attorney
| general, Verizon customers will lose out on innocent discussions. Verizon is
| retaining only eight newsgroup hierarchies, even though over 1,000
| hierarchies exist.
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9967119-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Usenet Villified In NY Deal With ISPs
,----[ Quote ]
| Time Warner Cable will turn off all newsgroup access, while Sprint plans to
| cut access to the whole alt.* segment. Verizon may follow Sprint's example.
|
| Blocking all newsgroups does appear to be a broad approach to a problem
| involving a minority of such groups. As with the Internet in general, not
| everything in Usenet poses a threat. But no one wants to be tainted with even
| a suggestion of being soft on child porn, hence the rush to apply censorship
| with a sweeping axe rather than a skillfully-wielded scalpel.
`----
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/06/11/usenet-villified-in-ny-deal-with-isps
EFF Sues Rodeo Group Over Removal Of Videos On YouTube
,----[ Quote ]
| The Electronic Frontier Foundation has asked a federal court to protect the
| free speech rights of an animal rights group after its video critiques of
| animal treatment at rodeos were removed from YouTube because of false
| copyright claims.
`----
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/06/11/eff-sues-rodeo-group-over-removal-of-videos-on-youtube
Internet Terrorist: Does Such A Thing Really Exist?
,----[ Quote ]
| Recently, I have experienced an increase in organizations questioning how
| real is the threat of Internet terrorism and what they can do to protect
| themselves. As a former CISO, this was one of the last concerns that crossed
| my mind, especially since it was a daily up-hill battle getting buy-in for
| the most basic security controls and services. The notion of worrying about
| the potential risk of terrorism against my organization seemed to be the
| lowest priority given the choices at hand. Ironically, terrorism today seems
| to be an emerging concern in the commercial world and many are actively
| pursuing methods and technology to help combat the problem. As a result, I
| began to research this trend to determine its drivers and potential
| implications to information security as we know it today.
`----
http://www.net-security.org/article.php?id=1169
The Continuing Cheapening of the Word "Terrorism"
,----[ Quote ]
| Illegally diverting water is terrorism:
|
| South Australian Premier Mike Rann says the diversion of water from the
| Paroo River in Queensland is an act of terrorism during a water crisis.
|
| Anonymously threatening people with messages on playing cards, like the Joker
| in The Dark Knight, is terrorism...
`----
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/08/the_continuing_1.html
Reputation Attacks: A Little Known Internet Threat
,----[ Quote ]
| Reputation attacks target both individuals and companies, and their goal is
| to ruin the victim’s reputation. While attack techniques are varied, the
| consequences are often the same: a damaged reputation resulting in many cases
| in financial loss. Attackers can use several methods to ruin a company’s
| reputation. Until now, most common attacks have been based on distributed
| denial of service (DDoS). The objective of these attack is to flood corporate
| online services by means of millions of non legitimate requests from botnets.
| In this way, business performance is affected, causing direct financial
| losses and the corresponding damage to corporate image and reputation.
`----
http://www.net-security.org/article.php?id=1168
And An i-Patriot Act
,----[ Quote ]
| Amazing revelations have emerged concerning already existing government plans
| to overhaul the way the internet functions in order to apply much greater
| restrictions and control over the web.
|
| Lawrence Lessig, a respected Law Professor from Stanford University told an
| audience at this years Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay,
| California, that "There’s going to be an i-9/11 event" which will act as a
| catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the internet.
|
| Lessig also revealed that he had learned, during a dinner with former
| government Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, that there is already in
| existence a cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act, an "i-Patriot Act" if you
| will, and that the Justice Department is waiting for a cyber terrorism event
| in order to implement its provisions.
`----
http://www.infowars.net/articles/august2008/050808i911.htm
Update on China/Tibet cyberattacks (and Russia/Georgia), and call for
testimonials.
,----[ Quote ]
| Also on this same day, I received an interesting update from Greg Walton, a
| SecDev Fellow at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto who also edits
| the Infowar Monitor.
|
| He's currently in Hong Kong doing pro bono work for the advocacy group Human
| Rights in China, briefing them on security issues and monitoring systems
| during a sensitive time -- the Olympics, recent unrest in Tibetan and Uighur
| regions, and other factors.
`----
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/08/12/update-on-chinatibet.html
A Czar for the Digital Peasants
,----[ Quote ]
| One sure sign of a lack of political vision is a rise in the number of pieces
| of acronymic legislation. After September 11, the US Congress passed the
| euphoniously named “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing
| Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act” the
| initials of which spell out “USA – Patriot.” The Patriot Act is a pretty bad
| piece of legislation, but at least its drafters worked hard on the acronyms
| so that opponents could be labelled “anti-patriot” – a perfect level of
| analysis for Fox News. Admittedly, in this administration, having public
| officials torturing acronyms rather than detainees might be counted as a
| plus, but I still find the whole practice distasteful. I'd suggest that
| politicians vow to vote against any piece of legislation with its own
| normatively loaded acronym, no matter how otherwise appealing. It might make
| them focus a little more on the content.
|
| In any event, Congress has been at it again. The House just passed, and the
| Senate is considering, the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for
| Intellectual Property Act of 2008 – or “Pro-IP” Act. (If it passes, a version
| is sure to be urged on Europe as a matter of “harmonisation.”) Are you
| pro-intellectual property? Then surely you must be for this piece of
| legislation! The name says it all.
`----
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/14aacbc8-41e1-11dd-a5e8-0000779fd2ac.html
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