Cryptic inside the beltway gossip.

ABC News: The Note: Rooting Interest

After he discovered a false biography on Wikipedia that claims he was responsible for the death of JFK and his brother Bobby, John Seigenthaler wrote an op-ed piece in USA Today refuting those claims and rebuking Wiki admins and the ISPs that host them. Now, in light of Seigenthaler's outrage, the once open access Wikipedia now requires registration to submit new articles to the English language version of the site.

Seigenthaler spent a tonne of time and resources to track down the writer of the wikipedia article. He also considered filing a John Doe suit and kicked up a gigantic shitstorm with his Op-Ed.

Wikipedia is far from perfect, but instead of wasting what I assume to be days and weeks of his time, why didn't he just correct the entry?

Wikipedia: The Rules Have Changed | MetaFilter

Why, yes, I think every man, woman, child, and pet should have a knitty ski mask-- it's an inalienable right, is it not?

--:--:--| hodgepodge |--:--:--

Powered by your mac or pc, you'll have hours of flying fun with these USB air darts. Let the mission begin!

Best USB peripheral evar!

USB Powered Air Darts - Marks & Spencer

He hints that Shardanand's start-up may be looking at software that places different levels of "confidence" in articles, based on the author's reputation. It's an unproven idea, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. It could be a user-voting system (like eBay's ratings); a method based on the most-linked-to people (like Google News, except for individuals); or an approach that uses collaborative filtering, sending a user a "liberal" or "conservative" version of a story based on the articles she's chosen before (like TiVo and Firefly).

A long and controversial article at SF Weekly complains about Craigslist's consumption of the newspaper classified ad business, and then goes on to provide a number of details about Newmark's attempt to create something an aweful lot like MemeStreams.

sfweekly.com | Craig$list.com

A new front in the political wars over sex and violence in video games opened Tuesday when Senators Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman called for a new crackdown on the industry by the federal government.

Remember that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for more of this kind of stuff. You know, children who are never exposed to reality and never have to make their own choices about right and wrong do a real good job of taking care of themselves when they go to college.

Senators target 'graphic' video games | CNET News.com

And so we live in a universe of new media with phenomenal opportunities for worldwide communications and research — but populated by volunteer vandals with poison-pen intellects. Congress has enabled them and protects them.

A prominent Nashvillian comes out against the requirement that Internet complaintants actually demonstrate that they have a valid legal complaint before getting access to the identities of Internet users. If he didn't have a valid legal complaint then I wonder what he intended to do with this person's identity? Attack them personally??

John Seigenthaler, a retired journalist, founded The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University.

What irony. Frankly, its wikipedia, just edit it, and if you worked with Kennedy try not to take your personal involvement in people's conspiracy theories seriously. RELAX. ITS JUST A BUNCH OF ONES AND ZEROS.

USATODAY.com - A false Wikipedia 'biography'

A senior telecommunications executive said yesterday that Internet service providers should be allowed to strike deals to give certain Web sites or services priority in reaching computer users, a controversial system that would significantly change how the Internet operates.

They're nuts. They have the customers with the cash. We've got the content. They ought to be paying us for making their service valuable!

Bell South Wants to Charge Websites

So you think you're good enough to break the protection?
You want to see how good you are in reversing applications?
And you want to do it the legal way?
Then you're at the right place!

Nice!

crackmes.de: Tools for practicing reverse engineering

ibenez wrote:
You guys must all be criminals - because I see no problem with this.

Why should criminals be the only people concerned about Constituional rights? Why have a Constitution at all if it only applies to criminals? What is the point of having a "free country" if freedom is only something that one enjoys when one breaks the law and isn't caught? I see multiple concerns here:

1. The FBI and DHS are doing just fine on this front. Any technology projects these people wish to pursue can be pursued in that context. There is no evidence of need.

2. Domestic spying requires 4th Amendment proceedures, which the Pentagon is not designed to handle and will not handle well.

3. The purpose of the Military is to protect the citizens from external threats, not to protect the government from it's citizens or to protect the citizens from eachother. We handle those different situations in different ways because we have a system of limited government which respects the rights of citizens. When you blur the lines between these different situations by taking organizations which are not designed to respect people's rights and having them deal directly with citizens on the government's behalf, you are essentially concluding that you will not respect citizen's rights anymore. If you don't respect citizen's rights, you're not a "free country."

4. The arguement that only criminals need bother with rights is a invitation to a police state, in which everyone is always suspect and everyone is always looking over his shoulder. This was the lesson of East Germany... that an omnipresent surveillance creates a culture of fear and suspicion.

RE: Pentagon Expands Domestic Surveillance