* By which they mean anything on a secret government blacklist compiled without any oversight (judicial or otherwise) and with no right of appeal. Hooray for democracy!
China 2.0
All hail the Great Leader!
Category: Law and Politics
Airstrip One
It just keeps getting worse…
You know, Big Media’s attack on democracy just keeps getting worse. Not content with “three strike laws” that allow a media conglomerate to cut off someone’s internet access by merely accusing them of copyright infringement (yes, that’s right, under these laws if Time-Warner or someone wants to throw you off the net all they have to do is say you’ve infringed their copyright three times, and you’re off – no trial, no burden of proof, no appeal) they’re now getting the UK government to set up a system where the Secretary of State can just make up and enforce laws about copyright without debate or approval by any other part of government.
Or to put it plainly…
What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright. — Cory Doctorow
You can read the full details from the link above, including some pretty disturbing things the new powers are intended to do.
If you live in the UK and care about either democracy or the future of the net, get in touch with your MP now!
Image (S)Hack
At the very least you could have posted your manifesto in *text* guys.
(I would like to apologise in advance for this post – it’s full of ill informed ranting. This is nothing unusual of course, but in this case it’s pretty bad. Hey, why don’t you go and read some other, more sensible post instead? Please?)
Apparently overnight the image hosting site Image Shack has been hacked by a group of people calling themselves “the Anti-Sec movement”. They’ve replaced (presumably) tens of thousands of images hosted on the site with a manifesto opposing the “full disclosure” method of publicising security flaws, and threatening “through mayhem and […] destruction” to force the abandonment of the same.
Well.
On the one hand I have to agree with some of their points. Full disclosure does have its share of problems – the main one being that the black hat hackers and the software companies get the same information at the same time, starting a race to patch the issue before it can be exploited (a race that the black hats usually win). That said, I do have some issues with the Anti-Sec manifesto as it currently stands.
(Edit: As it turns out that’s actually wrong – full disclosure policies almost always have a delay built in so that the companies responsible are told first and get time to patch the hole before the black hats find out about it. So Anti-Sec are basically talking out of an orifice other than their mouths.)
The first is the problem of security through obfuscation. Anti-Sec seems to be suggesting that if you discover a security hole you should shut up and sit on it so that no one can exploit it. This would work fine if it could be guaranteed that you’re the only person who would ever find it. This is, of course, ridiculous. Someone else will discover the same exploit and they may not have the same, upstanding community attitude that you do. The sensible thing would be to report the flaw to the company responsible so they can patch it before the knowledge becomes public. Anti-Sec may well support this method, but their manifesto says nothing about it.
(Edit: Actually they’re actively opposing it.)
The second problem I have is with their methodology. Let me quote…
It is our goal that, through mayhem and the destruction of all exploitative and detrimental communities, companies and individuals, full-disclosure will be abandoned and the security industry will be forced to reform.
How do we plan to achieve this? Through the full and unrelenting, unmerciful elimination of all supporters of full-disclosure and the security industry in its present form. If you own a security blog, an exploit publication website or you distribute any exploits… “you are a target and you will be rm’d. Only a matter of time.”
This isn’t like before. This time everyone and everything is getting owned.
Right. Well, opening a debate is one thing. Opening a debate and then forcibly silencing everyone with a dissenting viewpoint is completely another. And when that forcible silencing is achieved via threats and “unrelenting, unmerciful elimination” it’s basically terrorism.
So, it’ll be interesting to see how this thing plays out. If indeed it does play out and Anti-Sec don’t just vanish into the digital woods they suddenly emerged from like so many other online ‘movements’.
The Herd – 2020
Some more lyrics for y’all
Among doing other things today I tried to look up the lyrics to the Herd’s song 2020. As is often the case in this degenerate age, the versions of the lyrics I found were awful – seemingly transcribed by hearing impaired meth addicts. I was faced with no option but to transcribe them myself.
So here is a semi-decent version of 2020. Words and phrases I’m unsure of have been placed in brackets, and I’ve written out all numbers to make it clear how they’re pronounced. Enjoy!
(Oh, there’s a bit of adult language in there, so be warned)
The Herd – 2020
It’s not as if you didn’t get the warning,
You got the transcripts and recordings,
History has a way of signing us up in the morning,
If you’re a late starter make it easy to ignore it,
Later not recall it,Yeah, you had unfettered access to the facts,
But the fact is your back is turned to the Atlas,
Looking like (jumping) in the grass,
Just to help you make your mind up,
Unknowingly the young sign up,The enemy of our enemy is still our enemy,
So why were you (harming and resisting) insanity,
That’s how the Taliban began,
(But you’ve mostly) turn around,
And aim their weapons at Americans,How’s it feel to be a widow-maker,
Taker of the father of the family,
Your tragedy is (playing),
That’s the stakes that scoff at the Saigon link,
Flash those pearlies, take us way past the brink,And we you knew you were frauds,
Onwards we went to war,
Nothing could be said to promise you,
We’d already seen it before,Someone could’a told you it’d end like this,
They did, you didn’t listen, you can take a trip,
Lookin’ back twenty-twenty, mistakes I got many,
And the truth is that I’d probably do it again,No-one could have ever half sway your mind,
We’ve been there before but it’s not that time,
Lookin’ back twenty-twenty, mistakes I got many,
And the truth is that I’d probably do it againThere’s something familiar,
’bout that story you told me,
The way that you mouthed it,
It’s not what you sold me,Well yes I’m one of many,
Yet you ignored the signs,
You made it personal,
Don’t spin me them lies,Sir, you can’t relax,
’cause it occurred on your watch,
History will judge you,
’cause you’re all that we’ve got,Is anyone listening?
Are you f**king insane?
Am I twisted, watching as it plays out again?And the truth is we knew this,
People aren’t stupid,
You play the innocent because you think we let you do it,
If we think you’re too ruthless,
Show you where the point of the boot is,
It’s all about where the f**king proof is,You’ll keep an eye on that new kid,
He’s liable to do sh*t,
If you don’t keep a check on it, beyond your electorate,
Peace in Iraq man, stay in Afghanistan,
Lookin’ for Osama, getting killed by the Taliban,War on drugs, war on terror, nine-eleven,
We knew where Johnny stood, where’s Kevin?
Don’t get me wrong, alarm clocks from heaven,
Going off when the country woke up in o-seven,But there’s no letting up, no we’re just getting up,
Off the canvas, that very fact demands that,
We stay as vigilant as can be,
Transparency, Another AWB,
But we’ll see,Even as we applaud,
And we show them the door,
Thought we’d warn you that we’re wary,
Cause we’ve already seen it before,Someone could’a told you it’d end like this,
They did, you didn’t listen, you can take a trip,
Lookin’ back twenty-twenty, mistakes I got many,
And the truth is that I’d probably do it again,No-one could have ever half sway your mind,
We’ve been there before but it’s not that time,
Lookin’ back twenty-twenty mistakes I got many,
And the truth is that I’d probably do it again,
So Long Mr Bush
It’s over. It’s finally over.
As we bid a fond *cough* farewell to the 43rd President of the United States, let’s all take a moment to consider his accomplishments, both international and domestic, and for one last time enjoy his plaintive version of REM’s The End of the World as we Know it.
(Now let’s just wait for Obama to screw things up…)
I’m surrounded by f******* goblins!
With a shout out to the Potter Puppet Pals…
Apologies for the lack of updates but it’s been a rough few weeks.
There was a State Election resulting in a hung parliament which was resolved when the evil National Party decided to ally with the evil Liberal Party, bringing the state under the control of an evil pseudo-Coalition. Now I’m the last person to say the Labor party were great, but at least they weren’t going to start wholesale uranium mining, which seems to be about number one on the new government’s wish list. To quote Kent Brockman “Democracy doesn’t work!”
On a more personal note my parents had to have their dachshund Jacques put down last week (he had stomach cancer and couldn’t eat). They actually got him when I was still living at home, so he was sort of my dog too. It was all rather sudden, so on top of having to have him put down, I didn’t get a chance to see him first to say goodbye. I guess that sounds fairly wussy, but he was a great dog, and I miss him.
I’ve also been under a fair amount of stress at work. Thankfully that seems to be coming under control. One major job is out of the way, and I’ve got a clear list on what to do on the other major one, so things are looking up.
Expect more updates soon!
I want my morphine!
Or maybe they think it’s a front for Al Quedea…
FACT: Australia has no R rating for video games.
This is something I’ve known about for quite some time, and – apart from a vague sense of annoyance at the Government being so backwards – it’s never really been something of much concern to me. In fact I have to admit I found myself quite amused a few months back by the frantic efforts of certain people to get hold of an uncensored copy of GTA 4. But all that’s changed now, because the Government has launched a direct attack on the Wyrm fortress.
They’re refused classification for Fallout 3.
Apparently the ratings board don’t like the game’s use of morphine injections to temporarily repair inured limbs, and don’t feel that they can give the game a MA15+ rating with this feature included. Now, the sensible thing to do would be to give the game an R rating and make it… oh, but hang on, there isn’t and R rating, so Fallout 3 will remain unrated, making it illegal to sell or rent the game within Australia.
Let’s all say it together. Idiots!
Now it may be that a chopped down version of the game – without morphine and anything else the censors may object to – will be released here. But that’s not the point. The point is that the Government is still stuck in the mindset that computer games are something played exclusively by children. I’m not going to carry on about how adults play games as well, and that responsible, sane adults can watch something on a screen without immediately rushing out to do it – that’s all been more than covered in the debate about GTA – I’m just adding my voice to the chorus of disgust at our elected officials still living in the dark ages.
Happily it’s not illegal to import, own or play the game, so I’ll be looking overseas for a copy. God bless the internet!
Ummm, apart from that my life has been pretty boring of late. I thought I had some other things to blog about, but I can’t remember a single one. I guess that’s what three straight hours of Gilmore Girls on DVD will do to you 🙂
Oh yeah, FreakAngels Google Earth file updated. DON’T MESS WITH JACK!!
Actually it’s the other Salem
The law wants to be free!
There’s a fair bit of hooha brewing at the moment in the Pacific northwest of the United States. The government of Oregon (which I’d always considered one of the better US states, what with the Decemberists, Boring, Cascadia and Miranda – although technically she was from Washington 😉 is trying to convince all and sundry that it owns copyright in the state’s laws. This apparently goes against years of legal precedents, and people are getting quite riled up about it.
Now, I’m not a lawyer – let alone an American lawyer – but it seems to me that there are two very important reasons that laws should be in the public domain.
The first is that laws define a code of behaviour that citizens of a state are expected to conform to. Placing restrictions on how citizens can access and distribute laws – say, by instance, copyrighting them – impedes citizens’ ability to know and understand their legal obligations. Worse, it makes it harder for citizens to know and claim their legal rights, which can lead to very dangerous situations (eternal vigilance et al.).
The second reason goes right to the heart of democratic government. The idea behind representative democracy is that the people elect representatives to act on their behalf in the governing of the state. Members of government are there to govern for the people – they write and approve laws for the people and on behalf of the people. This means that (by the purest principles of democracy) the laws already belong to the people. Copyrighting them is theft.
So that’s my view on the matter. Let’s hope the government of Oregon remembers who it works for sometime soon.
Long Overdue
One Word
SORRY
(According to the cover of the Sunday Times over the weekend most West Australians don’t want to say that. But screw them. Anyway, the stories reported in the Sunday Times have a tenuous connection to reality at best)
The Evil Empire is Dead and we have their Booze!
Gloria! Gloria! (do do-do-do-do-do-do do-do-do-do-do do-do-do) Gloria! Gloria! ect.
Well the results are in (enough of them at any rate) and Labor has well and truly won the election! Here ends John Howard’s evil reign of terror! Let Kevin Rudd’s evil reign of terror begin!
What’s more it looks like Howard may have lost his seat, which would make him only the second Prime Minister in Australian history to do so – the last being Bruce in the 1920s (by the way, isn’t it cool that one of our Prime Ministers was named ‘Bruce‘? 🙂
In addition there seems to have been quite a swing to the Greens here in Western Australia (at least that’s the impression I get from Kerry O’Brian – in between his snide comments about the behaviour of the press teams from the other networks). Not enough for them to get a seat of course, but it’s a start and might make some people sit up and take notice.
The only thing that could really make the night complete would be for the minor parties to get control of the Senate. It doesn’t seem very likely since the self destruction of the Democrats a few years back, but we can live in hope.
(Hmmm, iTunes just served up Handel’s Gloria and See the Conquering Hero Comes, and the New Pornographers’ The Laws Have Changed. Coincidence? 🙂
