Links

Well, it’s been a few weeks since the last batch of links. I hope that you’ve all got quite a bit of time to read through these … but, if not, well, have a look through the various sections and pick the issue of your interest. If I had to pick a “top 10” for you to read right this minite, though, I’d probably choose these (not in any order):

1. TSA Screener Finds Blogger’s Vibrator, Orders Her to ‘Get Freak On’
2. Image Fulgurator: add messages on pictures taken by the others
3. Free FreeBieber.org! Fight for the Future Faces Bogus Legal Threats
4. Disney Masculinity
5. Taxi Driver Mummified Like Pharaohs
6. OWS’s Beef: Wall Street Isn’t Winning — It’s Cheating
7. Blackberry Service Disruption Linked to Dramatic Fall in Traffic Accidents
8. It’s Official: To Protect Baby’s Brain, Turn Off TV
9. Cell Phones: Why You Can’t Hear Me Now
10. University Adopts Predictive Technology

Censorship:

1. Bahrain: Where a Facebook “like” gets you expelled    14 October 2011, 6:11 am
2. France: Court orders French “cop watching” site to be blocked    17 October 2011, 6:19 am
3. Princeton Scientists Sue Over Squelched Research    17 October 2011, 11:03 am
4. Blogging IGF: EFF Fights Against Dangers of Intermediaries as Internet Police    18 October 2011, 8:54 am
5. Libel reform: a final push    19 October 2011, 1:05 am
6. US technology used to censor the Internet in Syria claim experts    22 October 2011, 11:00 pm
7. Feds to Blacklist Piracy Sites Under House Proposal    26 October 2011, 4:43 pm
8. BART Considers a Cell Phone Shutdown Policy    26 October 2011, 7:28 pm
9. Bloggers Under Fire    27 October 2011, 10:28 am
10. Free FreeBieber.org! Fight for the Future Faces Bogus Legal Threats    27 October 2011, 1:04 pm
11. BART Board Members Pledge to Implement Many of EFF’s Recommendations in Their Cell Phone Policy    30 October 2011, 8:40 pm
12. US company admits its technology has been used by Syrian government    1 November 2011, 4:57 am
13. United States – Domestic reality does not match bold words on Internet freedom of expression    2 November 2011, 8:25 am
14. Lawyer Sues Over Former Client’s Bad Online Review    5 November 2011, 4:27 am
15. The Stop Online Piracy Act: A Blacklist by Any Other Name Is Still a Blacklist    7 November 2011, 3:35 pm
16. United States – Absurd charges brought against reporters covering Occupy Wall Street movement    9 November 2011, 8:52 am
17. American Censorship Day is this Wednesday — And You Can Join In!    10 November 2011, 5:12 pm

I didn’t know whether to put the “free bieber” (link 10) issue into Censorship or into Copyright / Patent. Basically, though, the site shouldn’t be subject to copyright because it’s a “fair use” of the man’s name (it’s … satire, I guess). Yet, Bieber is trying to get the site shut down, claiming it infringes him somehow. I think that it’s a nice illustration of how media works towards censorship, and how copyright / patent law has become really just censorship, when it comes down to it.

Copyright / Patent:

1. Police Who Illegally Broke Into Gizmodo Journalist’s House Deride Seized E-mails as “Juvenile”    13 October 2011, 5:05 pm
2. U.S. Copyright Czar Cozied Up to Content Industry, E-Mails Show    14 October 2011, 3:30 am
3. Time Zone Data Returns    14 October 2011, 8:03 am
4. Judges’ Views Key in Gene Patenting Battle    18 October 2011, 2:33 pm
5. Copyright troll Righthaven ordered to pay $120k in attorney fees    28 October 2011, 4:39 am
6. SOPA: Hollywood Finally Gets A Chance to Break the Internet    28 October 2011, 1:33 pm
7. Creditor Moves to Dismantle Copyright Troll Righthaven    29 October 2011, 9:11 am
8. Skype Goes After Reverse-Engineering    30 October 2011, 8:39 am
9. Library of Congress asks: how should we let you break DRM?    30 October 2011, 10:24 am
10. Streaming Movie Service Zediva Pays Hollywood $1.8M, Shuts Down    31 October 2011, 5:18 pm
11. Twitter Beats Back Patent Claim at Va. Trial    4 November 2011, 8:27 am
12. Google threatens to cut ties with Chamber of Commerce over Protect-IP lobbying    5 November 2011, 8:15 am
13. Piracy is Not Theft: Problems of a Nonsense Metaphor    5 November 2011, 8:19 am
14. Why Big Media Is Going Nuclear Against The DMCA    6 November 2011, 11:05 am
15. Amazon Won’t Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away    8 November 2011, 7:35 am
16. Barnes & Noble Urges U.S. to Probe Microsoft on Patents    9 November 2011, 2:18 am
17. United States Patent: Method of exercising a cat    11 November 2011, 8:56 am
18. Warner Bros. Admits Sending HotFile False Takedown Requests    11 November 2011, 8:58 am

Link 9 is quite interesting: the Library of Congress is wondering how to break Digital Rights Management, so that they can preserve content for the future. Unlike paper books, which can be accessed however you’d like and generally last quite awhile, content provided electronically is only accessible through some device, and is frequently locked to a particular device through the use of DRM. That means that your “book” is, effectively, dead after a few years. That’s probably something which doesn’t bother you, but it certainly bothers those who worry about preserving things for the future! Ahh, links 17 and 18 provide some entertainment (somebody’s patented the use of a laser-pointer for exercising your cat) and a bit of insight into the entertainment industry’s misuse of the legal system. Perhaps we should call this section, the misuse / abuse of technology, hmm?

Education:

1. The Peer Review Process    18 October 2011, 11:18 am
2. Study Says College is Broken Not Teaching Critical Thinking | Geekosystem    19 October 2011, 4:46 am
3. Students Trade Hacking for U.S. Scholarships    4 November 2011, 9:36 am

Link 1 is some entertainment, link 2 questions the realities of higher education as it’s being done today, and link 3 … well, I guess if you want a scholarship in the U.S., the government would like you to spy on folks. Yay.

Gender:

1. Disney Masculinity    16 October 2011, 10:51 am
2. Women, Minorities Scarce in IT Security Field    17 October 2011, 2:16 am
3. The Quota Debate: Leading Companies Propose Voluntary Gender Targets    17 October 2011, 8:43 am
4. The World From Berlin: Without Quota, Gender Equality ‘Will Never Happen’    18 October 2011, 7:28 am
5. Women Making Slow, Sure Strides in Science, Math    26 October 2011, 8:52 am
6. Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment    30 October 2011, 8:52 am
7. Cybersecurity Mainly Male Domain, Geek Image Deters Girls    31 October 2011, 8:24 am
8. You should have your tongue ripped out: the reality of sexist abuse online    5 November 2011, 8:19 am

This is by no means a happy bunch of links, although Germany seems to be making some inroads into the issue of gender equality, or at least they’re talking about it (links 3 and 4). Link 1 is, of course, all about the gender lies we’re fed via the entertainment industry from the earliest age. The rest, well, present a conflicting picture of the world today, with some evidence that things are getting better, while simultaneously getting much much worse.

Hacktivism:

1. Diplomat Loses Top Secret Clearance for Linking to WikiLeaks    19 October 2011, 4:26 pm
2. Anonymous and Antisec Attack Law Enforcement Websites    21 October 2011, 9:04 pm
3. Anonymous Hackers Take Down Child Porn Websites, Leak Users’ Names    24 October 2011, 2:42 am
4. Image Fulgurator: add messages on pictures taken by the others    30 October 2011, 2:48 pm
5. Anonymous Threatens Mexico’s Murderous Drug Lords    30 October 2011, 3:19 pm
6. Darpa’s Plan to Trap the Next WikiLeaker: Decoy Documents    4 November 2011, 3:30 am
7. Anonymous calls off outing of cartel after release of kidnapped member    5 November 2011, 7:36 am
8. WikiLeaks is Dead. Now What?    5 November 2011, 7:38 am
9. Anonymous 101: Introduction to the Lulz    8 November 2011, 2:30 am
10. If WikiLeaks is dying, then the NYT is partly to blame    8 November 2011, 4:57 am

Link 4 has to be about the most entertaining link in the bunch, here. Basically, it’s a projector with some sensors attached, mounted on a tripod. It looks like a camera, but senses the flashes of nearby cameras and then projects—at very high speed, so it’s not evident to the person taking the flash photograph—some alternate image or text. It’s kinda creepy, and I’d probably quite upset if somebody ruined a shot of mine with something like this, but … well, it’s also kinda interesting and I’d like to think about how to use such technology.

Holocaust:

1. The Nazi Aesthetic: New Online Database Makes Third Reich Art Public    18 October 2011, 9:13 am
2. The Brown Bluff: How Waffen SS Veterans Exploited Postwar Politics    21 October 2011, 6:34 am

Israel / Palestine:

1. Displacement of Palestinians ‘a war crime’    31 October 2011, 4:31 pm
2. US condemns UNESCO over Palestine vote    31 October 2011, 11:19 pm
3. Israel navy to ‘intercept’ Gaza-bound vessels    4 November 2011, 12:24 am
4. Israeli navy boards Gaza-bound vessels    4 November 2011, 9:02 pm
5. Activists on Gaza-bound vessels detained    5 November 2011, 11:53 am
6. Israel – Press TV journalist still held    8 November 2011, 2:33 am

Again, no happiness in this section. I’m particularly disgusted by the U.S. stance on the issue (link 2). I guess that, in my ideal world, politicians would have a modicum of ethics and humanity as a requirement, and that there certainly doesn’t seem to be much of that surrounding the Israel / Palestine issue.

Law:

1. Discovery of Social Media in New York    21 October 2011, 11:39 am
2. Proposed law allows federal government to lie about public records’ existence    24 October 2011, 12:13 pm
3. Feds Embrace Lying in Response to Public-Record Requests    25 October 2011, 12:18 pm
4. Patriot Act Turns 10, With No Signs of Retirement    26 October 2011, 6:01 am
5. Ten Years After the Patriot Act, a Look at Three of the Most Dangerous Provisions Affecting Ordinary Americans    26 October 2011, 12:23 pm
6. Rightscon: “If we don’t get this right, people will be put in jail”    28 October 2011, 3:01 am
7. Appeals Court Heeds EFF’s Advice to Revisit Case That Makes Terms of Service Violations A Crime    28 October 2011, 1:55 pm
8. Supreme Court Plays Hooky, Leaves Student Online Free Speech Rights Murky    1 November 2011, 2:33 pm
9. Feds Drop Plan to Lie in Public-Record Act Requests    3 November 2011, 1:22 pm
10. Suing Employees for Computer Fraud Gets Easier    5 November 2011, 4:27 am
11. Attorney General: FBI Hurt Terror Fight With ‘Violent Muslim’ Training    8 November 2011, 11:45 am

Links 3 and 4 popped onto the radar as of the 24th of October and, within a week, the U.S. Government was backpedalling as quickly as they could (link 9) under pressure from activists. It’s a small win, but also disappointing that such a thing was even suggested. There are several happy things in here such as the courts actually considering that bad law can have a bad effect upon people (link 6) and the courts revisiting an earlier ruling which made it a crime to violate workplace “computer use” policies (link 7).

Miscellany:

1. God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible — Almost : Discovery News    14 October 2011, 4:20 am
2. Bureau Recommends: Failed doctors allowed to stay in NHS    3 November 2011, 5:52 am
3. Parents coordinate trading of chicken pox-laced goods via Facebook    5 November 2011, 8:51 am
4. Your Brain Knows a Lot More Than You Realize    8 November 2011, 4:48 am
5. Older Americans are 47 times richer than young    8 November 2011, 7:31 am

I wonder: if the NHS allows doctors known to be bad to remain working within the system, does that open the NHS to more malpractice lawsuits? Just a thought (link 2). Not that lawsuits would improve things, but perhaps it’s something they need to think about.

Museum / Library / Archive:

1. Records Management as a Crash Course    18 October 2011, 4:42 am
2. Taxi Driver Mummified Like Pharaohs    18 October 2011, 6:05 am
3. Pocket Books and Prayer Beads: WWI Grave Find Tells Story Germans Want To Forget    27 October 2011, 7:27 am

Link 2: some people will do anything. I guess, though, that if you’re dying and want to donate your body to science, well … no, I just can’t see wanting to be mummified.

Open Source / Access:

1. FSF: Campaign against windows 8 “secure boot”    18 October 2011, 3:41 am
2. Elsevier’s profits alone could fund all academic publications as open access    24 October 2011, 2:28 am
3. Closed access means people die    24 October 2011, 5:47 am
4. The French government deploys LibreOffice    24 October 2011, 12:12 pm
5. Royal Society journal archive made permanently free to access    26 October 2011, 8:56 am
6. Publicly funded science should be open science    30 October 2011, 8:34 am
7. The right to dual-boot: Linux groups plead case prior to Windows 8 launch    31 October 2011, 2:34 am
8. IBM Open-Sources ‘Internet of Things’ Protocol    4 November 2011, 9:36 am
9. Open Data Initiative Moves Into the World of Consumers’ Personal Data    7 November 2011, 10:14 am

This category is sort-of a hodge-podge, considering that the open-source movement is a bit different than the open-access movement. Add in the open-data movement and, well, it’s all a bit of a tangle. Open Source is about software: making it free and accessible, and making it work as part of a community. Open Access is about letting information be free and accessible. Open Data is about granting people access to the information companies hold about them. I guess, then, that the common thread could be said to be “community” and “openness.” We’ll see where they end up.

Politics:

1. Legalizing Pot More Popular Than Seeking ET Truth    18 October 2011, 11:35 am
2. Louisiana Makes It Illegal To Use Cash For Secondhand Sales    21 October 2011, 2:30 am
3. ‘Torture’ Judge Gets $3.4 Million Legal Defense for Free    24 October 2011, 1:34 pm
4. Google: a case for internet regulation?    27 October 2011, 8:44 am
5. OWS’s Beef: Wall Street Isn’t Winning — It’s Cheating    30 October 2011, 2:33 pm
6. FBI Calls In The Army To Fix Its Counterterrorism Training    3 November 2011, 9:52 am
7. The Tyranny of Meritocracy    8 November 2011, 7:31 am

Links 5 and 7 are certainly worth reading, no matter your feelings on the whole “occupy” movement: they’re articles which explore the rights of individuals within a society, and the structuring of society itself.

Privacy:

1. Germany Sought Info About FBI Spy Tool in 2007    13 October 2011, 5:14 pm
2. With iOS 5 You’ll Be Stalked Like Never Before    14 October 2011, 12:33 pm
3. Judge: No Warrant Needed for Cell Phone Location Data    17 October 2011, 1:50 am
4. Irish Data Protection Commissioner to audit Facebook    17 October 2011, 2:20 am
5. Actress Sues Amazon for Publishing Her Age    17 October 2011, 11:24 am
6. No GOP Senator Supports Bill to Protect Cloud E-Mail Privacy    17 October 2011, 4:11 pm
7. ECPA Anniversary Week Brings Calls for Change    17 October 2011, 9:36 pm
8. Unmasking a Critic: Law School Seeks Identity of Ex-Student Blogger    19 October 2011, 6:36 am
9. FBI Ramps Up Next Generation ID Roll-Out—Will You End Up in the Database?    19 October 2011, 3:17 pm
10. Police GPS Action Rejected by Ohio Court    20 October 2011, 1:36 am
11. United States – Journalist in legal fight with Obama administration over sources    20 October 2011, 1:58 pm
12. Aging ‘Privacy’ Law Leaves Cloud E-Mail Open to Cops    21 October 2011, 3:30 am
13. Google Puts A Price On Privacy    24 October 2011, 4:43 am
14. FBI Crime Maps Now ‘Pinpoint’ Average Muslims    24 October 2011, 10:30 am
15. TSA Screener Finds Blogger’s Vibrator, Orders Her to ‘Get Freak On’    24 October 2011, 12:50 pm
16. “Know Your Customer” Standards for Sales of Surveillance Equipment    24 October 2011, 6:39 pm
17. U.S. Requests for Google User Data Spike 29 Percent in Six Months    25 October 2011, 8:07 am
18. Your Digital Trail Could Prove a Barrier to Law School    25 October 2011, 11:28 pm
19. EFF Sues for Answers About PATRIOT Act on Law’s 10th Anniversary    26 October 2011, 9:53 am
20. Geo-Mapping and the FBI: High-Level Statements Contradict Practices on the Ground    26 October 2011, 11:06 am
21. Cell Phone Data and Expectations of Privacy    27 October 2011, 3:18 am
22. Russia – Government eager to use Net surveillance software currently in test phase    28 October 2011, 3:08 am
23. MPs call for jail sentences in data breach cases    30 October 2011, 9:48 am
24. Congress asked to investigate Internet “supercookies”    30 October 2011, 10:24 am
25. The Register accidentally emails 46,524 user details to 3,521 of them    30 October 2011, 2:39 pm
26. Bad Cases that Make Bad Law: EFF Urges Federal Circuit to Reverse the Trend    31 October 2011, 2:18 am
27. NHS staff posted patient information on Facebook    31 October 2011, 4:09 am
28. Privacy Fail: Klout Has Gone Too Far    31 October 2011, 8:04 am
29. Carnegie Mellon Report Finds Internet Privacy Tools Are Confusing, Ineffective for Most People    2 November 2011, 9:53 am
30. Feds’ Use of Fake Cell Tower: Did it Constitute a Search?    3 November 2011, 2:46 pm
31. Calif. Cellphone Search Case Highlights Courts’ Tech Problems    4 November 2011, 4:39 am
32. Does the Fifth Amendment Protect Your Encryption Key?    4 November 2011, 8:27 am
33. Screen-Spy Program Can Read Texts and Emails    4 November 2011, 9:37 am
34. Bureau Recommends: Syrians spied on by European technology    5 November 2011, 6:02 am
35. CIA following Twitter, Facebook    5 November 2011, 7:39 am
36. Feds Seek Unfettered GPS Surveillance Power as Location-Tracking Flourishes    7 November 2011, 3:00 am
37. Busted! Two New Fed GPS Trackers Found on SUV    8 November 2011, 2:30 am
38. Citing Orwell, Supreme Court Appears Wary of Police GPS Surveillance    9 November 2011, 1:25 am
39. Socialbots Used by Researchers to ‘Steal’ Facebook Data    9 November 2011, 2:32 am
40. Supreme Court, Help! My Mini-Bar Is Spying Without Warrants    9 November 2011, 12:54 pm
41. N.Y. Suit Says Landlords Use Court’s Data to Blacklist Potential Tenants    9 November 2011, 11:18 pm
42. Privacy Loses in Twitter/Wikileaks Records Battle    10 November 2011, 1:56 pm

42 links is quite a lot, but there seems to be quite a lot of anti-privacy things going on, so I guess there’s no escaping the volume. It all comes down to technology enabling an erosion of privacy because the law hasn’t caught up with technology. Because it can be done, it will be done, and that’s the worry.

Robotics:

1. Robot Strawberry Pickers    21 October 2011, 11:34 am
2. Fast high precision eye-surgery robot developed    27 October 2011, 5:27 am
3. Gecko-Inspired Robot Rolls Up Walls    1 November 2011, 11:33 am

Link 2 is just awesome. In a nutshell: it’s a robotic tool which lets eye surgeons work far more effectively. Cool! Of course, wall-climbing robots are neat, too. 🙂

Roma:

1. Clashes as UK police evict travellers    19 October 2011, 11:26 am
2. Rights body condemns French Roma expulsions    10 November 2011, 12:55 pm

I guess one of the things I find interesting about the persecution of the Roma (those of you outside Europe might know them as “gypsies”) throughout Europe is that although they are citizens of the European Union, because they have no “home country” it seems that they have less legal protection. I guess, to me, Law isn’t supposed to be about your ancestry or where you were born, but should be based in principles and should be uniformly applied. Instead, the treatment of Roma provides a classic example of how law is applied based upon economic and social power, and where law fails to live up to the ideal of Law.

Security:

1. Google Encrypts More Searches    18 October 2011, 11:19 am
2. Google Encrypts Search to Thwart Wi-Fi Hackers    18 October 2011, 12:05 pm
3. Son of Stuxnet Found in the Wild on Systems in Europe    18 October 2011, 12:54 pm
4. Smartphones’ accelerometer can track strokes on nearby keyboards    19 October 2011, 7:57 am
5. Military ‘Not Quite Sure’ How Drone Cockpits Got Infected    19 October 2011, 1:17 pm
6. Flash Bug Allows Miscreants to Remotely Operate Your Web Cam    20 October 2011, 11:27 am
7. Virginia Tech Cybersecurity Breakthrough Keeps Sensitive Data Confined in Physical Space, Engineering Team Says    21 October 2011, 11:34 am
8. First State set police on man who showed them how accounts could be ripped off    24 October 2011, 7:08 am
9. Researchers Release Attack Tool That Cripples Secure Websites    24 October 2011, 5:36 pm
10. When Users Resist    30 October 2011, 7:39 am
11. NASA Confirms Satellite Hacked Twice    30 October 2011, 8:34 am
12. E-Voting Remains Insecure, Despite Paper Trail    2 November 2011, 9:44 am
13. One-time Secret: Share passwords etc with URIs that work only once    8 November 2011, 7:31 am

From link 10: “people are conscious that a password breach can have severe consequences, but it does not affect their attitude toward the security policy implementation…. the more technical competence respondents have, the less they favor the policy enhancement.” It’s an interesting study, but I don’t find it surprising, somehow, that people would resist changes in password policies. One of the things they overlook is that we “technically competent” people recognize that we use weak passwords all the time—and we’re quite happy doing so for most things, because most things don’t really matter all that much to us when it comes down to the content which is at risk. That’s not even looking at the fact that, if you’re going to make me change the password every 3-6 months or something, I’m going to be unmotivated to come up with anything secure.

Even those which require a “secure” password don’t make me happy, because a password of only 8 characters long—even if it contains symbols, numbers, and a mix of letter-case—is still quite easily cracked. Even it it’s “salted” with some random bits from a server somewhere. So, basically, if you’re not going to let me write something long and memorable to me (which is difficult for a computer to crack), then I’m not going to put much thought into it—I’m going to reuse some junk password just for the purposes of getting through the exercise. If, however, you were to allow me to have a password which is memorable and long (e.g., “peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” which is 44 characters long, including spaces, 37 without), then I’d have a more secure password and would be much happier about the whole thing. Sure, it’s all lower-case, doesn’t contain a number of symbol … but it’s far more secure than only 8 characters!

Link 13 is kind-of a neat idea: drop any text into their site and you’ll be given a one-time-use URL, which you can share with whomever. Whatever you put into the site will then be erased, the first time that link is used. I’m still trying to figure out a good use for such a thing, but I like the idea very much!

Technology:

1. Like iOS 5? Thank a Hacker    14 October 2011, 3:19 pm
2. Planet Text: How SMS Messaging Is Changing the World    15 October 2011, 9:39 am
3. Blackberry Service Disruption Linked to Dramatic Fall in Traffic Accidents    17 October 2011, 6:52 am
4. It’s Official: To Protect Baby’s Brain, Turn Off TV    18 October 2011, 3:30 am
5. Psychopaths Revealed by Computer Analysis    18 October 2011, 6:32 am
6. Comcast No Longer Choking File Sharers’ Connections, Study Says    21 October 2011, 2:31 pm
7. Disastrous IP Legislation Is Back – And It’s Worse than Ever    26 October 2011, 4:08 pm
8. Cell Phones: Why You Can’t Hear Me Now    28 October 2011, 5:44 am
9. Thousands Petition Obama to Block E-Parasites Act    1 November 2011, 11:21 am
10. Ind. AG Will Testify Against Cellphone Bill    4 November 2011, 4:39 am
11. Why Parents Help Children Violate Facebook’s 13+ Rule    5 November 2011, 8:27 am
12. Senate Set to Vote on Neutering Net Neutrality    7 November 2011, 2:53 pm
13. University Adopts Predictive Technology    9 November 2011, 2:31 am
14. Senate Rejects GOP Bid to Overturn Internet Rules    11 November 2011, 2:25 am

Link 3: when people can’t access their text-messaging service, they don’t have driving accidents … so, you know, if you needed proof that it’s silly to text-message and drive, there you go. Link 4: television is bad for children, proven. Link 8: the reason that cell phone conversations are difficult to follow is because the technology has assumed that the important part of people’s voices fall within a very narrow range, and that’s just not the case. Link 13: software can now tell who’s likely to drop out of school … here’s hoping that something can be done with the information!

-D