An Egyptian court this week sentenced blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman to four years in prison. He is the first person in Egypt to be jailed for internet-based journalism. He was charged with "inciting hatred of Islam" and insulting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his blog, where he wrote under the pseudonym of "Kareem Amer".

Snip from AP coverage of the sentencing on Thursday:

Nabil [Kareem Amer], wearing a gray T-shirt and sitting in the defendants pen, gave no reaction and his face remained still as the verdict was read. He made no comment to reporters as he was immediate led outside to a prison truck.

Seconds after he was loaded into the truck and the door closed, an Associated Press reporter heard the sound of a slap from inside the vehicle and a shriek of pain from Nabil.

This is deeply wrong. Egypt, frankly, is not supposed to be some Talibanesque backwater governed by ignorant religious radicals who are so afraid of the transparent flaws of the belief system they are promoting that they have to go around cracking down on anyone who criticises them. The problem of statist Islamic radicalism, from which Egypt has suffered more than any western country, simply cannot be resolved unless people in muslim communities are able to stand up and tell these people just how stupid and wrong they are. By throwing this person in prison, the Government of Egypt sides with the ideological goals of Al'Queda and Islamic Jihad. It is time, unfortunately, for the International Community to start looking at Egypt sideways. They are not running a free country and they are not contributing to a positive future for the world.

Boing Boing: Egypt: blogger Kareem Amer gets 4 years for insulting Islam

This Korean website is selling the umbrellas from Blade Runner! How cool! I have to say, I could see people using these in Seoul. They wouldn't seem strange there. Of course, that might be just my perception, because everything there is slightly alien to me. However, the density of the city somehow makes this seem easier to imagine than in, say, Atlanta, where if you're walking around with an umbrella you're usually walking to or from a car. Perhaps these would be good in Manhatten.

어른들을 위한 장난감 가게

A must-watch clip of gay actor George Takei (Sulu from Star Trek) responding to Hardaway's homophobic comments.

Very funny.

George Takei 0wnz Tim Hardaway

Welcome to the new world of border security. Unsuspecting Americans are turning up at the Canadian border expecting clear sailing, only to find that their past -- sometimes their distant past -- is suddenly an issue.

Canadian attorney David Lesperance, an expert on customs and immigration, says he had a client who was involved in a fraternity prank 20 years ago. He was on a scavenger hunt, and the assignment was to steal something from a Piggly Wiggly supermarket. He got caught, paid a small fine and was ordered to sweep the police station parking lot.
He thought it was all forgotten. And it was, until he tried to cross the border.

The official word from the Canadian Border Services Agency is that this is nothing more than business as usual.

But what has changed is the way the information is gathered. In the wake of 9/11, Canada and the United States formed a partnership that has dramatically increased what Lesperance calls "the data mining'' system at the border.

The Smart Border Action Plan, as it is known, combines Canadian intelligence with extensive U.S. Homeland Security information. The partnership began in 2002, but it wasn't until recently that the system was refined.

"They can call up anything that your state trooper in Iowa can,'' Lesperance says. "As Canadians and Americans have begun cooperating, all those indiscretions from the '60s are going to come back and haunt us.''

This is an important development. One of the things that information systems can do is make law enforcement perfect in certain contexts. Many laws are written with the assumption of imperfect enforcement. I'm sure that the people who originally crafted rules baring "convicts" from crossing borders knew that the data usually wouldn't be available. Its a convenient excuse that they can use to bar people if they need a way to bar them and they happen to have looked into them.

With this sort of information now at their disposal, the regulation takes on an entirely different tone. Anyone convicted of any minor offense is now barred from International travel without engaging in an involved paperwork process. This was not the intent of these laws, but modern legislatures are unlikely to act to resolve the situation unless they are the subject of significant pressure. Unfortunately, that pressure needs to start in the United States, which has been ratcheting up the requirements and the information sharing. The xenophobia and 9/11 skittishness here probably makes that an uphill battle.

Eventually, the fact that this information is being shared with all sorts of countries may result in a U.S. Citizen facing a bigger hassle from a foreign government than visa denial because that government has access to this data, and different legal standards. Canada may bar you for a pot conviction, but most South East Asian countries execute people for pot possession. A xenophobic moral panic in such a country might result in a records check of all expats, who might be repunished there for crimes they had been convicted of elsewhere.

Going to Canada? Check your past / Visitors with minor criminal records turned back at border

Rather than being a liability, however, social networks can be used to personalize and tailor information to individual users, and drive the development of new social search algorithms.... Digg can create personalized front pages for every user that are based on his or her friends’ readings. This will finally free individuals from “tyranny of the majority” which results from viewing a common global front page.

We've been doing that since 2001.

Social Networks and Social Information Filtering on Digg

I'm not certain I see categorically how removing a virus would fall into these provisions however, and I'd like to hear what I've missed.

If someone comes to you with a computer that they think might be infected with a virus and offers to pay you to look at it and possibly clean it up, you are providing services in which you are collecting information with reference to a crime. The text "crimes against the United States" does not mean circumstances were the federal government is the victim, it means circumstances where a United States law was violated. The distribution of viruses is illegal, and collecting information about that as a work for hire would be, under this law, a felony punishable with prison time.

Its worth pointing out that such activity may already be illegal under the present law, but that law has never been enforced in this context. There are clear signs, in particular, statements made by the PI board, that certain quarters are interested in seeing that law enforced in this context. With this rule change the risk goes from a minor misdemeanor charge to a felony with serious penalties. The result will be that IT professionals who do not have a background in criminal justice will have to think twice before making any offer to help someone who has been the victim of a computer crime.

That is the intent of this bill and the intent of the people who support its enforcement in this context.

Anyway, I think there's two different aspects to consider here. The first is your normal IT functions, such as virus and spyware removal, the configuring and monitoring of firewalls, etc., and the second is more advanced computer security such as responding to system compromises, "forensic" data analysis, systems fraud monitoring, etc. The former, I'd think, should be pretty much completely exempt from any sort of regulation.

This law makes no such distinction, and I don't know how you can distinguish between a spyware infection and a system compromise, nor do I know how you can distinguish between normal IT functions and "systems fraud monitoring." They are the same things. There is a professional practice of detailed computer forensics for the purpose of evidence collection for trial which is separate from normal IT security functions. You'd expect people who offer such services to understand the law of evidence collection, but there is absolutely no reason to require that those people be former police officers. In fact, in dealing with this issue for a year now I have yet to hear anyone offer an articulate explanation of why such a requirement would be desirable.

The latter, on the other hand, as I've said, has implications for evidence and the potential recovery of losses or the proscecution of a criminal investigation. Given that, I actually don't oppose the notion that such workers should be verifiably conversant in the legalistic... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: hb504_LC_29_2714_a_2.html

A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Chapter 38 of Title 43 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to private detectives and security agencies, so as to revise a definition;

HB 1259 is back, and if anything it is worse. If this bill becomes law it will be a felony for CompUSA to remove virsuses from infected computers without a PI licence and a law enforcement professional on staff. If you are computer consultant and you respond a computer breakin you could face a year in prison under this statute.

This matter requires national attention from the IT Industry. Now.

Georgia General Assembly - HB 504

Maybe the reason why apparently empty messages like these resonate with my generation is that we don't have any icons of our own.

When someone recently asked me why people my age (I'm 21) listen to bands from our parents' generation, I had to explain that, with a few exceptions, we don't have any real musicians any more. Without massive advertising campaigns, a lot of the "music" you can buy today, like Beyonce, wouldn't exist.

We're a voiceless generation. We have nothing we can point to and say: "This is us, this is where we stand." We're lost and silent and we don't know what to do about it. We're sold a parody of culture that we buy because, well, what choice do we have?

This article really hits the nail on the head. Gold Star.

I've ruminated several times on MemeStreams that music sucks right now. When I go out to MJQ on Wednesdays I don't see a scene. I see an amalgamation. Gangsters, Hipsters, New Wavers, Grungers, Ravers, Punks, all dancing together to a potpourri of music that has no consistant style or era. It means nothing and it says nothing, like those tshirts that are designed to look like advertisements but aren't. Its a fish out of water, flopping around randomly in hopes of landing in a stream.

I'm concerned that this is a byproduct of September 11th. The gravity of the threat of islamic terrorism is so great that any domestic youth cultural movement seems trite in comparison, and so nothing really resonates with people, but unlike previous existential crises there is nothing for most people to do. And so they are left in the lurch, wallowing in echos of previous generations' ideas, waiting for a fight they can get behind or a technological innovation with deeper possibilities than the text message.

It might also be a byproduct of copyright law. We should have seen an explosion in interesting prosumer internet radio shows and art movements. It hasn't happened. We have the tools, but the products are illegal and the RIAA is watching.

What do you think?

We're All Borf In the End

I'd been avoided looking at this because electronic writing on buildings has been done before, but their setup is actually fairly cool. The folks at Graffiti Research Labs created a rig that facilitates painting with light on the side of a building. It uses a high lumens projector to project the light, a green laser pointer to do the writing, and a security/astrononmy camera to detect where the green laser was pointed. They have made all the code available under the GPL.

Here is video of them using the rig via YouTube:

Higher quality quicktime video can be found here.

Graffiti Research Labs - Laser Painter

"Defuse the ticking time-bomb known as your child's imagination before it explodes and destroys her completely," said child-safety expert Kenneth McMillan, who advised the HHS in composing the guidelines. "New data shows a disturbing correlation between serious accidents and the ability of children to envision a world full of exciting possibility."

The guidelines, titled "Boundless Imagination, Boundless Hazards: Ways To Keep Your Kids Safe From A World Of Wonder," are posted on the HHS website, and will also be available in brochure form in pediatricians' offices across the country.

According to McMillan, children can suffer broken bones, head trauma, and even fatal injuries from unsupervised exposure to childlike awe. "If your children are allowed to unlock their imaginations, anything from a backyard swing set to a child's own bedroom can be transformed into a dangerous undersea castle or dragon's lair," McMillan said. "But by encouraging your kids to think linearly and literally, and constantly reminding them they can never be anything but human children with no extraordinary characteristics, you can better ensure that they will lead prolonged lives."

Satire: Experts call for restrictions on childhood imagination - CNN.com