A Muslim businessman in Canada became a terror suspect for telling his sales staff in a text message to "blow away" the competition at a New York City trade show, a religious association said Friday.

Moroccan-born Saad Allami, who works as a telecommunications company sales manager, was arrested three days after he sent the message in January 2011 and detained while police searched his home, said the Muslim Council of Montreal.

How did they know?

'Blow away' text lands Muslim in Canada jail

Acidus wrote:

Google CEO Eric Schmidt: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place,"

... ...

This was an enormously stupid and hypocritical thing for him to have said, particularly in light of the CNET incident, and it will be requoted and requoted for years to come.

However, its worth noting that Google recently created a Dashboard that allows users to control what information is collected about them. A snippet from this news report:

Dashboard let me review my Web searches going back to 2006. Long-forgotten queries about airline tickets, books and magazine articles, a new clarinet for my daughter - they’re all still there.

I recommended this when I spoke on the subject of privacy at WWW2007. But its really an extension of Greg Conti's research, in which he developed tools that allow users to see what information Google is collecting. Conti is quoted in that news article.

It doesn't really solve the problem - the privacy problem is a collective problem and this is an individual solution. Its more a negotiating position if you will. You insist that you need all this information in order to operate these services - can you at least empower me to see what you've collected and to opt out? On a certain level it provides Google with a way of shunting uncomfortable questions about privacy by allowing concerned people to opt out as it applies to them personally. However, we will face the broader social implications of the privacy problems posed by these systems regardless of whether or not we individually opt out.

Nevertheless, I'm glad that Google did this. Its an important step. It could help raise people's awareness.

More on the subject here.

RE: Fuck You Eric Schmidt

Wow

Government In Action

From Boing Boing:

"Mr. Lee is a cat in Germany, whose owner has attached a camera to his collar so that we can share his daily adventures! Some of the photos are mysterious. Others are beautiful. I love this!"

Cat has camera on collar so we can see what he does

A classic.

Kraftwerk - Autobahn

100% quality!

Plaid - Itsu (more infographic'ish music video stuff)

Verbage snatched from IMDB:

* * *

Just saw this on Film Four tonight (UK TV chanel)... very interesting, but 50 minutes isn't even near long enough if you've read Paul Sammon's excellent "Future Noir: the Making of Blade Runner". Interviews with everybody involved except Harrison Ford and Sean Young of course, who hated each other's guts during the making of the film. We even see Philip K. Dick before he died - what a paranoid bloke he was! And even, for the first time ever, a look at the deleted scene where Deckard visits Holden in hospital. If you look you'll see the set for that scene was from Alien.

It's amazing visiting the buildings Ridley Scott used to make his future vision of Los Angeles. In the daytime they look NOTHING like Scott's sets, particularly the Bradbury Building in L.A., used for the final battle... when you see the before and after shots it really brings home what a genius of visual style Scott is.

Most shocking is that whilst all of the people have obviously aged in the last 20 years, Joe Turkel (Eldon Tyrell) hasn't aged a day! Hmmmm...

For anyone that hasn't read Paul Sammon's book, you'll be amazed at the problems encountered making this film, a true up-hill struggle. But Blade Runner still remains one of the best American movies of all time.

Ridley Scott admits this is one of his best films, and millions of cult fans worldwide agree. A true original...

On The Edge Of Blade Runner

A set of long exposures that were taken while playing video war games of the 80's, created by Atari, Centuri & Taito. The photographs were shot from video game screens while playing the games. By recording each second of an entire game on 1 frame of film, captured complex patterns were captured not normally seen by the naked eye.
Fantastic! Where can I get prints?

Long Video War Game Exposures

Via jwz:

* * *

The new Congress has barely begun, but the major record labels are already up to their old tricks.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has re-introduced the PERFORM Act, a backdoor assault on your right to record off the radio. Satellite and digital radio stations as well as Internet webcasters would have to adopt digital rights management (DRM) restrictions or lose the statutory license for broadcasting music.

Well, Congress is off to quite a start this year. In addition to killing off small webcasters they're talking writing a blank check for the DOJ to create ISP Data Retention requirements and they're back in to fining sites like MemeStreams hundreds of thousands of dollars if we fail to comply with an arcane reporting rule for child porn incidents.

They are also seeking to criminalize Internet use:

Another section of the draft bill says that anyone convicted of certain child exploitation-related offenses who also used the "Internet to commit the violation" will get an extra 10 years in prison.

Marv Johnson, a legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the extra 10 years in prison was an odd requirement because the Internet is not inherently dangerous like a firearm. Rather, he said, the bill proposes to punish someone for using a perfectly legal item or service in an illegal way.

"It would be like punishing someone additionally for driving a car in the commission of an offense," Johnson said.

Moral panic is so awesome!

Don't Let Congress Shackle Digital Music

This is strict constructionalism on drugs.

Colbert Defends Alberto Gonzalez