Law and Politics – Page 9

We have to be Sssssssneaky!

Big surprise…

Here’s something interesting that’s come my way. Senator for Censorship Stephen Conroy has a blog, located at http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/. As is fashionable in these upstart, youngster blogs it has a tag cloud – over on the right – which displays the most common words and phrases used in said blog. All well and good.

Except you have a look at the source code. Here can be found a chunk of Javascript that generates the tag cloud, and which has a very interesting addition.

First up is a long string of phrases that can appear in the cloud. I won’t copy this in because it’s huge, but in the middle is the phrase “ISP Filtering” – the Government’s euphemism for their ridiculous net filter proposal. Further down is the code that adds up the totals for each keyword and prints out the 15 highest ranked…

for(var i=0; i<=15/*<-Important! increase this value by 1 everytime a keyword is excluded below*/; i++)
{
var z=0;
for(var j=0; j<split.length; j++)=”” {=””>
if (unique[i]==split[j]) {
z=z+1;
}
counts[i] = z;
}
var size = getTagClass(z);
//Customise the tag-cloud to display what shows up
if (unique[i] == “ISP Filtering”)
{
continue;
}
document.write(‘<a class=”‘+size+'” href=”%5C%22http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/search?q=%27+unique[i]+%27%22″>’+unique[i]+'</a> ‘);
}
document.write(‘</split.length;></p>’);
document.write(‘</div>’);
}

There, do you see that bit in red? That’s a neat little patch that prevents the phrase “ISP Filtering” from ever coming up in the cloud.

Fascinating no? The Government is filtering their own sites to prevent mention of their own web filter. Great work everybody!

On the Democracy Front

Threats are coming thick and fast…

Well thankfully it looks like South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson has backed down over his ridiculous and anti-democratic laws concerning political blogging. Excellent!

For those late to the party, Atkinson got some new laws put in in South Australia this week forcing anyone who wants to post anything anywhere online about the upcoming state election to sign their comments with their real name and postcode. It seems that he was motivated to create such laws because he believed the opposition were using a false identity to harass him in the comments section of a local newspaper website (oh poor diddums!). Apparently this wouldn’t threaten free speech in any way because people could still say what they liked, they’d just have to say who they were at the same time (the fact that the option of anonymity is crucial to genuine free speech seems to have evaded his tiny mind).

In the face of (unsurprising) public outrage he’s had to back down and promised to retroactively cancel the laws after the election. He’s attributing this outrage to the “blogging generation”, which only goes to show how hopelessly out of touch he is.

Additionally, in a nice bit of irony it turns out that the ‘fake commenter’ created by the Liberal Party to harass him in the Adelaide Advertiser is in fact a real person who lives less that 500m from his office. Nice to know he keeps in touch with his electorate.

Of course Atkinson is the same guy who’s singlehandedly preventing an ‘R’ classification for computer games anywhere in the country, apparently on the basis that anyone who wants to play anything more sophisticated that Mario Cart is a ravening sociopath. He also claimed that the gamers lobby (who are trying to get such a classification set up) are sending him death threats – on the basis of one threatening letter that turned out to be related to a completely different case.

What can you say but roll on the election!

China 2.0

All hail the Great Leader!

The federal government has green-lighted its highly controversial censorship plan to introduce a mandatory internet filter that will block refused classification content* from being accessed on Australian soil.

* 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!

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 again

There’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.