Monday there will be a meeting at Kennesaw College:

Date: May 8, 2006
Time: 10:00am
Location: Room 300

Speakers: Calvin Hill, Representative who sponsored the bill, and
John Villanes, Chairman, Georgia Board of Private Detectives

It would be nice to see anyone that cares at all about this topic. REALLY if you care - make arrangements to be there. It does matter and I think we can all make a difference even if it means banding together. The Governor has to make a choice by Tuesday to Sign or Veto.

Scott Moulton

Decius: Unforuntately I will be unable to attend due to some responsibilities at work, but I strongly encourage those who care about this issue to make a showing at this meeting if at all possible. If they don't, this will turn into a very one sided discussion about a nationally unprecidented and extremely destructive law.

U: It has been vetoed!

Debate on HB1259 in Kennesaw

Because these networks are often connected to the Internet, this introduces their customer’s sensitive data to greater risk.

Do not read while hold sharp objects or if you have a tendancy to bang your head against a table when presented with something unfathomably dumb.

ATM_Vulnerabilities_04_10_06.pdf (application/pdf Object)

YouTube has taken down the videos [of Colbert's performance], citing copyright infringement.

This could be an important moment. A large segment of the Internet viewing public wants access to Colbert's video. Its owned by CSPAN. CSPAN videos are not in the public domain. This is something that most people don't understand and aren't prepared to hear. Now a large number of people are hearing it, and it will be interesting to see how they react.

The bottom line is that this stuff is organized this way because it affords control. If this content was in the public domain it would be recontextualized all over the place. The government is afraid of sampling. This is why the Supreme Court doesn't allow recordings of cases to get out. They don't want to be sound bitten by the press, which is notoriously bad at dumbing down Supreme Court decisions to the point where the explanations have no relationship to what actually happened.

For example, look up news stories about the Hamdi decision, which the Administration clearly won. Bush got the right to detain enemy combatents indefinately without trial, as long as some internal process exists for determining whether the right people are being held, at a standard of "guilty until proven innocent." The press coverage called it a rebuke for the Administration and gushes about a fine day for individual rights. It would be positively orwellian if it was the product of malice rather then simple failure to grasp what was going on.

Now, thats the objective press. Put this same content in the hands of someone with an agenda to push and you get, well, the right wing's ridiculous exaggeration of Kelo V. New London.

Both sides to this debate have legitimate perspectives. The people feel like they ought to own the recordings of the proceedings of their government. The government doesn't want to be beat down for every verbal misstep they make on the floor. Over time I think you're going to see the people push on this more and more, and eventually the government will be forced to acquiesce or evolve in some way that makes their process more suited to an age of free information.

Boing Boing: Why was Colbert press corps video removed from YouTube?

It has taken almost three years—by some counts, more than 6 years—but ICANN’s domain name policy making organization has finally taken a stand on Whois and privacy. And the results were a decisive defeat for the copyright and trademark interests and the US government, and a stunning victory for advocates of the rights of individual domain name registrants.

In Historic Vote on WHOIS Purpose, Reformers Win by 2/3 Majority

GE Ion Track’s revolutionary walk-through portal quickly screens people for contraband without physical contact. Thanks to our patented Ion Trap Mobility Spectrometer (ITMS®) technology, EntryScan3 detects a wider range of explosives and narcotics with unprecedented sensitivity.

U:Frankly, deploying an automated narcotics screening device at airports is almost certainly unconsitutional. The airport security screening is only legal because it is limited to protecting the safety of flights. The government has argued that if they happen to find evidence of other crimes in the course of looking for weapons and explosives, this is OK. They had a legitimate reason to perform the search. However, if they deploy devices that are specifically designed and configured to perform searches which have nothing to do with airplane safety they are clearly operating outside of that scope. These devices CAN be configured to only look for explosives. The question is, are they?

U2: A smoking gun? (They could simply be using these in narcotics mode at customs checkpoints, where its legal...)

Safe Passage System’s security solutions were expressly developed to provide the same level of explosives and narcotics screening increasingly deployed at airports nationwide, but on a mobile, on-demand basis.

Kim Cameron’s Identity Weblog » GE Puffer Stinks of Dr. Strangelove

If it weren't for the fact that I know better, I'd wonder if it was a secret conspiracy....

OK, wait a minute, this is an extremely eerie comment to hear from a code cracker with government affiliations. If you didn't know better? How could you possibly know that there isn't a secret conspiracy guiding your affairs? The whole point of a secret conspiracy is that its a secret! The only way you could possibly know that there isn't a secret conspiracy afoot is if you were so confident in your access and visibility into secret conspiracies that no secret conspiracy could operate without your direct knowledge! Which would mean... which would mean..... OK, fine, Elonka, please, tell us, whats the deal with Valerie Plame? Seriously... We won't tell anyone. No one reads this site anyway...

RE: AP/Washington Post: London Lawyers Turn Into Code-Breakers

So, rumination on the Global Online Freedom Act (HR4780) introduced in Congress with much fanfare back in February eventually led me to conclude that its a bad idea. While well intentioned, the export restrictions that it would impose are overbroad, and the controls on server hosting make doing any sort of business in China or other targetted countries either extremely difficult or impossible.

I am very strongly opposed to several misinformed calls to add Internet filtering software to the U.S. Munitions List. This is a knee jerk reaction made by people who have no experience dealing with U.S. export controls and do not understand how they operate. While an export rule makes sense, it should be limited only to repressive states that engage in political censorship, apply only to deals with government and telecommunications entities in those states, and it should be administered by BIS and not the State Department. There is absolutely no reason that the federal government ought to be involved everytime someone in the U.K. wants to buy a copy of Net Nanny for their home P.C. That level of scrutiny is designed to protect people from being killed and it is not justified by everyday use of censorware in private homes and businesses. ITAR regulations are not a political plaything. Such a policy would likely draw important resources away from problems that are far more critical to national security (PDF).

At the time I was thinking that no matter how effective the United States is at keeping these countries from getting access to American Internet filtering technology, if those countries can't source the stuff here they will source it somewhere else. What people who live in these places really need is better technology for subverting these filters. The U.S. ought to be looking to do ... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

No to Global Online Freedom Act, Yes to Global Internet Freedom Act!

Security researchers and legal experts have voiced concern this week over the prosecution of an information-technology professional for computer intrusion after he allegedly breached a university's online application system while researching a flaw without the school's permission.

Find a bug. Report it. Have the U.S. Attorney claim in court that you are liable for the costs associated with fixing the bug. Go to Jail. Dave Aitel has it right... Retarded...

Breach case could curtail Web flaw finders

I saw searching for something completely different when I found this... Its an archive of nice photos including a large number of pictures of HongKong. Good desktop background fodder.

Kleptography - Don Ellis Photography

For further insurances, that [the prosecutors] don’t get beat up to bad, an group of defense attorney’s drunk and stoned friends will be there to assure [the prosecutors’] safety.

Respectfully Submitted: March 27, 2006.

Actually filed. If this wasn't such a serious matter this would be hillarious... Take note of the spelling.

OrinKerr.com » Motion for Fist Fight