] At the New Generation Internet Ten-Digit Network
] Industrialization & Development Seminar held on June
] 25th at Zhejiang University, it was announced that
] China's Internet technology, IPv9, had been formally
] adapted and popularized into the civil and commercial
] sectors.

What the fuck is this?

China deploying IPv9?

] Today the Internet was pronounced dead. The immediate
] cause of death was universal disinterest.
]
] For decades, the Net had been a free and open network
] that allowed anyone to send e-mail, publish information,
] provide services or sell products. Internet fever fueled
] a stock market boom in the 1990s that made startup
] companies into household names. Then huge losses resulted
] when business dried up from declining Net use. The
] Internet auction business finally disintegrated because
] of persistent fraud.

Future history reports on Internet's demise

] The Israeli Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a
] contentious section of the barrier being built by Israel
] in the West Bank violates the rights of thousands of
] Palestinian residents by separating them from their
] farmland in "a veritable chokehold, which will severely
] stifle daily life."

This story includes a pretty amazing photo of Israel's Berlin Wall.

Israeli Court Orders Changes in Barrier (washingtonpost.com)

] Hundreds of thousands of people in white shirts poured
] onto the streets of Hong Kong on Thursday to vent their
] frustration at Chinese rule and challenge Beijing's
] refusal to allow them to elect their own leaders.

Choosing stories this morning for their pictures. This is Victoria Park full of protesters. I usually stayed in a hotel in Hong Kong which had this same view. If its possible to feel homesick for a place you only worked in over the course of a few months this picture does it.

Hong Kong Democracy Protest

] WASHINGTON -- The government needs to establish
] guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if
] terrorists strike the United States again, says the
] chairman of a new federal voting commission.
]
] Such guidelines do not currently exist.

Government needs guidlines for handling election day terrorist attacks

] "They didn't really have a specific plan for what to do,
] case by case, if we lost," a senior Department of Defense
] official said on condition of anonymity. "The Justice
] Department didn't have a plan. State didn't have a plan.
] This wasn't a unilateral mistake on Department of Defense's
] part. It's astounding to me that these cases have been pending
] for so long and nobody came up with a contingency plan."

Yahoo! News - Detainees May Be Moved Off Cuba Base

] In Portland's Victorian heyday in the second half of the
] 19th century, the neighborhoods near the waterfront saw
] the seedier side of the city's activities, with saloons,
] bordellos, and boardinghouses catering to the sailors and
] other working folk who passed through Portland looking
] for a night of relaxation after a day or month of hard
] labor. But a night of drinking turned into an ongoing
] nightmare for thousands of unsuspecting young men, when
] they woke up the next morning on a ship bound for Asia.
] They had been Shanghaied.

History of sailor slavery in Portland

] We strongly encourage members of the general public and
] non-commercial communities, etc. to submit comments on
] each Report. The outcome of the WHOIS Policy Development
] Process will have a significant impact on privacy, civil
] liberties, and freedom of expression for Internet users.

If any of you have taken an interest in my comments to ICANN, pro or con, you should submit your own comments. Its important that ICANN hear from you.

Submit your comments to ICANN

] ICANN should see DNS Whois for what it is, a relic of a
] simpler time, and focus instead on the IP address Whois
] systems, where their efforts might reap meaningful
] results.

After the drama I stirred up last week (see the politech list) Circle ID offered to feature an article from me about the DNS Whois issue. Here it is.

DNS WHOIS: Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Seeing as I'm sitting here reading Supreme Court decisions I figured I ought to read this Hiibel decision. IMHO, the majority opinion is non-sentical. Basically they say that its constitutional for a state to have a law which requires you to provide your name, unless providing your name could incriminate you, in which case they'd be happy to hear you argument.

I think we ought to have a standard which says that laws are either constitutional or they are not. I don't think its reasonable to say that the law is constitutional unless circumstances prove otherwise, in which case I guess the government isn't supposed to apply it. How would this work in practice?

If I'm being interrogated by a police officer and my name is incriminating information, and I refuse it, and they charge me with failure to provide my name, how am I to challenge the constitutionality of their requirement unless I demonstrate that my name is, in fact, incriminating (and therefore incriminate myself)?