In early 2005, a few people fed up with the way the Internet was heading, began in earnest to create a large wide area network that was secure and lived in its own space. On this new network anyone would be free to do as they saw fit - roam about, host services, or just be social without fear of being monitored or even worse censored. The first step to bring this network to fruition was to encrypt the information that normally travels across the Internet. What they ended up with is known as anoNet.

Something about turning the Internet inside out... Has anyone bothered to check out the wiki thats hosted behind tor?

anoNet: Cooperative Chaos

In one new study, six objects ranging in heft from five to 15 times the mass of Jupiter were observed. None are bound to stars. All are young and have disks of gas and dust that resemble disks found around young stars. Our own Sun had such a disk, out of which asteroids, comets and planets formed, theorists say.

SPACE.com -- Strange New Worlds Could Make Miniature Solar Systems

Nashville producer and artist Jeremy Dickens remains on the vanguard of electronica in a city known for twang.

MemeStreams user logickal has a new EP out. I'm pulling it down from iTunes right now. If you're into ambient industrial music his stuff is definately worth a listen. You can catch some samples of his work on his podcast, now in it's 27th episode.

dPulse Recordings : Logickal

New policies on prisoners being drawn up by the Pentagon will reportedly omit a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment."

You can actually SEE the power corrupting us. Here is the LaTimes link.

Pentagon to omit Geneva ban from new army manual: report - Yahoo! News

he Atlanta Roadways Digest (TARD) is a satirical look at driving in Atlanta. All of the photos and video footage on this site are real-life, unrehearsed snapshots of Metro-Atlantans (and visitors to this great city) at their driving worst.

The Atlanta Roadways Digest (TARD)

writer's block is a bitch.

Jdasjkh f alsdjkhouiwenjlnasc ljn - News - MSNBC.com

Canadian police said on Saturday they had halted a "real and serious" terror threat in and around Toronto. Twelve men and five youths said to have been inspired by al Qaeda were arrested in the operation involving hundreds of officers, authorities said.

Another data point for the Al' Queda is a scene meme.

CNN.com - Toronto terror plot foiled -- Canada - Jun 3, 2006

For six plaintiffs to demand that the elected government cease a needed surveillance program is the epitome of undemocratic action.

For the Conservatives to claim that they can ignore Constitutional restrictions on Government action because they won the Presidential election by 3 million votes is also the epitome of undemocratic action, as it takes far more then a simple majority to change the Constitution.

The Truth About Secrets

We’re a movement to take our country back from polarizing politics. In 2008, we’ll select and elect a Unity Ticket to the White House— one Democrat, one Republican, in whatever order, or independents committed to a Unity team.

Someone is sick of the partisanism.

Unity08: Select & Elect a Unity Ticket in the 2008 Presidential Race

finethen wrote:

The Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on the Web-surfing activities of their customers to aid law enforcement, and may propose legislation to force them to do so.

I'm not sure why this would be so useful for them. It sounds like an expensive and complicated way to gather information regarding only a small percentage of crimes. Anyone care to explain?

This is the noxious fog of your worst orwellian nightmares being slowly, ever so slowly, pumped into the country in hopes you won't notice the gradual change in air quality.

In general, this information isn't expensive to retain. Its already collected by ISPs. The computers they have automatically log this information for troubleshooting, security, and billing purposes. Its just that the ISPs usually throw that information away when they don't need it anymore. The Government is asking them to keep it for a long time. (Its worth noting that the reason Google is viewed with suspicion by privacy advocates is because they already retain all of this sort of data forever.)

All kinds of information is involved. ISPs can see who you've emailed, who has emailed you, what websites you've visited or other computers you've accessed, what IP address you've been using, and what times you were online. All of this is kept automatically. Websites (like this one) know which pages have been viewed from particular IP addresses at particular times. The feds have talked about forcing us to retain data too. If you combined the information from a website with the information from the ISP's logs, you could determine who viewed particular pages on a website or who wrote particular posts.

Due to the (tortured, IMHO) reasoning of Smith V. Maryland this kind of information has no Fourth Amendment protection, although some limited statutory protection exists.

The given example of kiddy porn is simply raised here because its one of those issues wherein almost no one is willing to oppose the government lest they be accused of defending kiddy porn. Its a straw man that is used to prevent debate. This kind of information can come in handy in all kinds of civil and criminal cases. The government might want to know who was using an IP address at a particular time if a computer breakin occured from there, RICO or anti-terror prosecutors might want to know who you've been emailing, your spouse might also want to know that in the event you are getting divorced, even a murder trial might be impacted by evidence that you were online during a particular time period. In the past information about internet search terms has been used to butress a case against an accused murderer.

Basically, these computer logs tell me a heck of a lot about what you think about, who you interact with, and what your lifestyle is like. So much information is there that I don't really need the content of your emails if I want to build a case against you, and with no messy Fourth Amendment to worry about, we don't have to trifle with judicial oversight!

Ever do something illegal with your computer? Ever use the Internet for any purpose that you wouldn't want other people to know about? The Internet is Forever.

RE: U.S. Wants Companies to Keep Web Usage Records - New York Times