Archive for ‘February 2009’

Another random thought Friday, and a pay Friday (for me) at that! It's been a long week, that's for sure. Today's RTF includes continuation of the pirate bay trial and various other things that caught my attention over the past week or so, Enjoy.

Pirate Bay Witness' wife overwhelmed with flowers
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-witness-wife-overwhelmed-with-flowers-090227/

Pirate Bay trail day 9
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-trial-day-9-bittorrent-is-not-evil-090226/

Divers find hotel 300ft deep in Lake Jocassee
http://www.inquisitr.com/18788/lake-jocassee/

Illegal Immigrant slavery in Florida's tomato picking industry
http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2009/03/politics-of-the-plate-the-price-of-tomatoes

Microsoft suing TomTom, 3 of the 8 claims refer to filesystem patents the Microsoft owns
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/02/25/its-on-microsoft-sue.html

UCPA runs "Snip City" campaign, invites men to schedule a March Madness vasectomy
http://www.urologycp.com/SNIP_CITY_Press.html

Herpes rise linked to Beer Pong
http://www.asylum.com/2009/02/24/herpes-rise-linked-to-beer-pong/

Russian man dies of Viagra Overdoes, goes out on top!
http://www.asylum.com/2009/02/27/russian-man-dies-of-viagra-overdose-goes-out-on-top/?icid=200100397x1219546649x1201338291

Top 5 misleading propaganda videos from the 40s, 50s and 60s
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/lists/five-funny-propaganda-videos-110708

I've been keeping up with The Pirate Bay trials recently and there is some very interesting day to day coverage over at TorrentFreak (http://www.torrentfreak.com/search/pirate%20bay%20trial). Whether you believe file-sharing is morally wrong or not, its interesting to see it being challenged in a place that has different laws than here in the States. For the most part, file-sharing is largely legal in Sweden, at least for now.

It is interesting how little knowledge prosecutors have of disorganized, well, organizations. I didn't expect them to know a whole lot about the underlying tech of torrents but to not understand there is no 'kingpin' that runs TPB in these days just seems a little odd to me. There are some good quotes as well in the trial notes by torrent freak, such as the revelation that the IFPI was going to sue google for infringement.

Two new bills (and probably many more to come) have been introduced, S.436 in Senate and H.R.1076 in the House. Each of the companion bills are titled "Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act" or the Internet SAFETY Act and is attached to a larger bill that deals with child exploitation and money laundering. Each bill contain the same language:

"A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user."

I am not a lawyer but to me the wording in this act is so broad and undefined that any 'provider' can be a company, community or individual whether for profit or not. This means that if YOU have a wireless network, you COULD be sited under this law. This also covers those of us in IT, managing logs of our users' IP addresses for two years. There is more information in this article on c|net.

Now it may sound like sensational reporting and it very well could be, but part of problem (without going into the whole idea itself) is the broad terms within the language. This means that while the average user probably won't be charged under this law, it does mean they COULD be. It also would bolster the defense of the MPAA and RIAA when suing people who allegedly download copyrighted content.

Hopefully these bills will never pass in there current form, however its not a stretch to think it would be. These days it seems anyone who opposes any law related to child exploitation in it is branded as someone who sides with child molesters and kiddie porn addicts. The problem is the broad reach of this law harming those who do nothing related to child exploitation or money laundering.

People must act, the best way is to call or write well formed letters to your politicans about why this Act is a bad idea. It usually helps to have a few good examples in there where the law could be damaging.

I've composed a sample letter below to send, its very rough draft-ish, could use a LOT of work and I really reccomend writing your own. If anyone has any suggestions to the letter below or any ideas they'd like, please contact me.

Dear [name]

My name is [my name] and I'm a registered voter in the state of [your state]. I'm deeply concerned about two acts that have recently entered into the Senate (S.436) and House (H.R.1076) that would seem to impose strict information technology level record requirements on standard citizens.

This act, known as the "Internet SAFETY Act" states "A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user." The text, as you see, is broad. The legal definition of electronic communication service is "any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications." The U.S. Justice Department's position (http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/s&smanual2002.htm#_IIIB_) is that any service "that provides others with means of communicating electronically" qualifies.

From my understanding, this means if my friend comes over and connects to my wireless network, I would have to keep records of his connection and relevant details for up to two years incase law enforcement requests these records. This also seems to mean that if I purchased a WiFi router for home use and do not secure it (generally only the more tech savvy users know how to do this) I and many other voters of yours could be held accountable for not maintaining these logs even if we lack the know-how to do so.

While the majority of this bill is centered around money laundering and child exploitation, both of which are major issues, it also opens the possibility for abuses of the legal system holding standard citizens responsible for technology requirements that many are unable to understand. Either this portion of the bill needs to be better defined or stricken.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please vote against this bill in its current form until changes are made to better protect the citizens from wrongful prosecution.

Sincerely,
[Your name]

I haven't been around here much, cleaning the cobwebs as I type. Life's taken hold as usual and things get busy, its how they are. Being Friday is a plus though and the only thing I have planned for this weekend is relaxing, working on the car and building a new media center PC. Might involve a little drinking as well. For now, enjoy the following links of things that caught my attention.

Again with the per-mile tax:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-lahood-vehicle-mileage-tax,0,6754105,print.story

Fox news picks up on the robot rebellion:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,496309,00.html

Awesome cave house for sale:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/20/cave-house-for-sale.html

Sorry Mario, the princess is in another castle:
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/02/16/power-on-self-test-s-11.html

Really, REALLY bad valentines prank:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0218091shamu1.html

Japan...:
http://www.evilmilk.com/pictures/Hmm_Japan.htm

AT&T won't let you cancel your dry loop DSL 'cause you don't have a landline:
http://consumerist.com/5155853/att-you-cant-cancel-your-dsl-because-you-dont-have-a-landline

LifeHacker workspace show and tell:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/lifehacker-workspace-showandtell/