ubernoir wrote:
since I'm not opposed to censorship in principle I don't have a problem with the blocking of child porn sites since I regard freedom of speech as fundamental yet not an absolute.

I certainly agree that child porn is not protected speech. I'm not arguing that they shouldn't regulate child porn. However, there are different ways that they can choose to go about regulating it. This particular approach is dangerous.

In general, speech is speech. In my view the government has no business censoring any kind of speech. However, there are places where speech extends to action, such as when something is both speech and an act of trafficing in stolen credit cards, and those are places where government regulation can be warranted.

I think child porn is one of those cases. I tend to think about it in terms of privacy - the people depicted did not consent to being depicted and even possession of the images constitutes continued violation of their privacy. This view of the issue is somewhat inconsistent with how governments view the issue. Many people cast this in the terms you did - that freedom of speech is not absolute - so some kinds of speech can be regulated as long as we find them offensive. This is an unbounded (and in my view somewhat unprincipled) way of looking at the issue that opens the door to censorship of a great deal of speech. Viewing regulation of child porn through the prism of privacy creates a clear distinction with speech that is purely expressive, and it also raises questions about other kinds of privacy issues that I think ought to be raised, such as the case of the "starwars kid," but this is a huge digression.

No matter how you slice it, child porn is a small exception to the general rule that speech is speech and the government has no business regulating it. The government has choices in how they go about regulating speech and I believe that they need to be careful in this domain that they are not posing a threat to legitimate speech. There are various ways that the UK government could go about dealing with 100 or so URLs that contain content they believe to be illegal. Clearly, one approach would be to work with other countries to get that content pulled down.

Filtering creates four problems.

First, it requires building an infrastructure that can be used for the censorship of any content. A different government elected to power could quickly react to a "crisis" situation by blocking access to international news sources. They could literally move from decision to implementation in hours. So the infrastructure represents a significant threat to liberty regardless of how it is being used today.

Second, it is usually overbroad in practice. The system in the UK seems very carefully maintained and so it is the exception to the rule. But even they ran into a problem where they literally blocked anonymous editing of Wikipedia for the entire coun... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

RE: ‘Anonymous’ Declares War on Australia Over Internet Filtering | Threat Level | Wired.com

With the passage of every week it becomes more apparent that Obama, having been vetted and receiving the nod years ago from a coven of Big Men (the Pritzkers, hedge fund and PE players, etc.) is there to forestall, divert and deflect any meaningful attempts to control the voracious greed and impunity of our masters. However, events are likely to overwhelm his ability to fend off reality with eloquence, and he may face a powerful backlash when more and more people realize that there is less there than meets the eye and ear.

Obama

Hackers identifying themselves as “Anonymous” launched a denial-of-service attack Wednesday against a web site for Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to protest a government proposal to filter internet content, according to the Australian Associated Press.

This seems like a stupid stunt, but then again, the news reports caused me to notice the issue. I'm dismayed that the UK has allowed this kind of filtering scheme to be deployed with hardly a whimper of protest, at least as far as I heard over here. That success has emboldened censors in numerous western countries who want to deploy similar systems. I have the impression that the filter list that is running in the UK is fairly carefully managed such that most Internet users don't know its there. The only controversy that I've heard of was over that Scorpions album, which is obviously an edge case. The Australian filter list was leaked, and reports seem to indicate that it contains material that should not have been listed. Making matters worse, the Australian government has tried to censor the list.

I don't think goverments should filter the internet. If they insist, there is something to be said for doing it transparently.

‘Anonymous’ Declares War on Australia Over Internet Filtering | Threat Level | Wired.com

The three men convicted in the United Kingdom on Monday of a plot to bomb several transcontinental flights were prosecuted in part using crucial e-mail correspondences intercepted by the U.S. National Security Agency, according to Britain’s Channel 4.

Although British prosecutors were eager to use the e-mails in their second trial against the three plotters, British courts prohibit the use of evidence obtained through interception. So last January, a U.S. court issued warrants directly to Yahoo to hand over the same correspondence.

It’s unclear if the NSA intercepted the messages as they passed through internet nodes based in the U.S. or intercepted them overseas. If the former, it’s possible the interception was part of the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program — a surveillance program aimed at intercepting foreign correspondence as it passed through domestic internet switches.

Its possible that these emails were obtained illegally, which is an interesting datapoint for the TSP. There is quite an argument in the attached thread.

Basically, Yahoo is a US entity. Intercepting communications between Pakistan and Yahoo involves a US party, even if the content of that communication is an email that someone in the UK is going to pick up from Yahoo later. Traditionally, a FISA warrant would be required for that. Under the TSP the NSA was picking this stuff up without a warrant. The change to FISA made in the last days of the Bush administration was intended to allow them to do that going forward.

NSA-Intercepted E-Mails Helped Convict Would-Be Bombers | Threat Level | Wired.com

Apparently if you haven't already seen this you aren't very good at teh Internet.

Epic Kludges and Jury Rigs

The widespread opposition to a Presidential address to students, a priori, for partisan reasons, is a total disgrace. This is a new low for political polarization in this country. The outrage represents basic disrespect for our democratic institutions and is fundamentally unpatriotic.

You can disagree all you want with the policies, and you all know that I disagree vehemently with many of the policies of this administration as well as the previous administration. But if you don't respect the institution of the Presidency and right of the elected President to serve that roll, you invite disdain for democracy on the whole and for our system of government on the whole. I might understand that if it was coming from the political margins, but its an entirely different thing when it comes from a vastly powerful political coalition that can and does win elections and make policy. In those shoes it is an invitation to political collapse.

What message are you sending to children who don't understand your politics when you tell them you don't want them to hear an address from the President?

Disgraceful

Wu ruled that Drew could not be guilty of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for merely violating a website’s terms of service.

Cyber Bullying Case Officially Dismissed for Vagueness | Threat Level | Wired.com

Mr. Foster,

This afternoon I received an email from you, attached below, which orders me to remove a post from my blog at www.memestreams.net about the cracking of the TI-83 OS Signing Key. Upon receiving your email I removed the post you reference from MemeStreams. However, I do not think that the post you referenced on MemeStreams violates Texas Instruments' intellectual property. Your email does not make clear what aspect of my post you object to, and because it was so vague I suspect you may have emailed me without taking the time to properly digest the context and purpose of my post.

I am a professional computer security researcher. My personal blog on MemeStreams is a place were I regularly comment on matters relevant to computer security in both the technical and policy realm. The purpose of my post about the TI-83 signing key was to report the fact that the key had been cracked, to explain why I felt that event was important and unprecedented, to discuss the implications of that event for the practice of computer security, and to consider potential events that might follow in the future.

Absolutely nothing about my post was intended to encourage or facilitate the violation of Texas Instrument's Intellectual Property. I did not include specific information, such as the numeric keys, which might have facilitated that. Frankly, I don't care about calculator operating systems and neither does anyone else who reads my blog. My interest in the subject is purely academic - its about the implications that this event has for the greater practice of computer security.

I did provide hyperlinks to the forums where the crack was discussed, but I did so only because those are the primary sources that demonstrate that the event that I was reporting on did, in fact, actually happen. While the DMCA has been used to prohibit people from providing hyperlinks in the past, this has only been done in the context where the purpose of providing those hyperlinks was to facilitate infringement. Nothing about my post encourages infringement. In my case the purpose of providing the links was to accurately report the news.

I have a constitutional right to report the news. I have a right to report that this event occurred, to explain what web forums it occurred in, and explain what implications I think it has. This is no different from a newspaper reporting that a murder occurred, reporting what street it occurred on, and explaining why their readers should care. The DMCA does not curtail these fundamental constitutional rights.

I sympathize with your position Mr. Foster. In fact, the post you asked me to remove predicted that Texas Instruments might pursue legal action against the people who are attempting to violate their intellectual property. However, I am not one of those people and I ever expected to receive a legal threat from you. As your email does not make clear what aspect of my post you object to, I've been forced to remove the post in its entirety. I feel this is a significant trespass upon my First Amendment rights and I presume that it could only have happened in error.

Please take a moment to carefully reconsider the position you've taken here.

Thank you,
Tom Cross

The email posted below has been modified from its original form. The original email contained a hyperlink to a third party website that Texas Instruments seems to think violates their intellectual property. Texas Instruments also seems to think that posting that link violates their intellectual property. Because the DMCA notice they sent me includes that link, by their logic, distributing that notice in its original form would also violate their intellectual property. Therefore, I've had to remove that link from the notice.

Here is the notice I received:

From: "Foster, Herbert"
To: "tom@tomcross.info"
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:46:24 -0500
Subject: Illegal Offering of Material to Circumvent TI Copyright Protections

To: Tom Cross, Chairman - Memestreams

Re: Illegal Offering of Material to Circumvent TI Copyright Protections

VIA: E-mail to: tom@tomcross.info

It has come to our attention that the web site www.memestreams.net contains material and/or links to material that violate the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). This letter is to notify you, in accordance with the provisions of the DMCA, of these unlawful activities. Pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, we request that you remove any whole or partial reproductions of and/or disable links to the following:

The link at the bottom of the www.memestreams.net page entitled "TI-83 Plus OS Signing Key Cracked - ticalc.org."

[ED: The text "TI-83 Plus OS Signing Key Cracked - ticalc.org" was originally a hyperlink that TI claims I cannot make.]

Texas Instruments Incorporated ("TI") owns the copyright in the TI-83 Plus operating system software. The TI-83 Plus operating system uses encryption to effectively control access to the operating system code and to protect its rights as a copyright owner in that code. Any unauthorized use of these files is strictly prohibited.

www.memestreams.net is distributing or providing links to information (found at http://www.memestreams.net/users/decius/blogid10355905) that bypasses TI's anti-circumvention technology. By providing copies of or offering links to such information, www.memestreams.net has violated the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA at 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1).

Please confirm to the undersigned in writing no later than noon on August 28, 2009 that you have complied with these demands. You may reach the undersigned by telephone at (972) 917-1522 or by email at h-foster@ti.com. TI reserves all further rights and remedies with respect to this matter.

I hereby confirm that I have a good faith belief that use of the Illegal Material in the manner complained of in this letter is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law, that the information in this letter is accurate, and that, under penalty of perjury, I am authorized to act on behalf of TI, the owner of the exclusive rights in the TI-83 Plus operating system software that are allegedly misappropriated using unlawful methods.

Texas Instruments Incorporated

Herbert W. Foster

Manager, Business Services
Education Technology Group

The federal Cybersecurity legislation that was proposed earlier this year is back on the docket. The text about the President shutting down networks has been reworded and it sounds less silly now. They want the power to identify stuff that is too sensitive to be connected to the Internet, or possibly too overrun with malware, and disconnect it. Whether they should have the power to do that to private sector networks is certainly a subject for debate, but now that we know what they are talking about at least we can debate it.

I personally think its still too vague. It could be interpreted to mean that if you are a private company and you haven't installed the patch for the latest Windows vulnerability the "Internet Police" can come and pull the plug on your whole operation. Who actually makes these calls? What are the limits of this power? Are these decisions subject to review? Is this really the right way to resolve security problems on the Internet?

Unfortunately the section about mandatory licensing of Computer Security professionals is still there. As I say in the thread attached to the bill, that section has graft written all over it.

As for that thread, I'm linking OpenCongress, a website built by the PFF and the Sunlight Foundation which I've never used before. OpenCongress lets you read, research, and comment on legislation. Its got some nice features and interface. If they can manage to keep the discussion civil this will turn into a very powerful tool. However, there are still some bugs they need to work out, including the fact that you can't login using Safari!

Text of S.773 as Introduced in Senate: Cybersecurity Act of 2009 - U.S. Congress - OpenCongress