A short snip about Schneier's new book. This is how hackers can help prevent a police state. Thinking critically about security mechanisms that control but don't secure. For example, at Defcon, John Q. Newman, an expert on identity fraud, made a very interesting case that "national ID cards" were really LESS SECURE then the existing system. They merely serve the purpose of database centralization. If there is only one card to forge, then all of the resources in the forgery community get aimed at that card, and it falls no matter how strong it is. If there are many cards to forge, resources are spread out and forgeries aren't as good. Canada is learning this the hard way with their new national birth certificate. Lets not make the same mistake.

Counterpane: Crypto-Gram: November 15, 2002

] "The crowd trampled the 25 people out of ignorance
] rather than panic."

United Press International: Altruism, not panic, prevails in disasters

The best code in the world can be foiled by a single bug. One careless line of code can crash an entire program.

Lawrence Lessig calls laws "East Coast Code," and it only takes a few buggy laws to strangle freedom and innovation in technology. Laws like the DMCA, the Hollings Bill, and the CDA threaten to put the American technology juggernaut up on blocks.

AOTC has researched the sponsors of eight bad Internet laws and compiled a list of their most prolific campaign contributors. These laws were written and sponsored by a tiny handful of lawmakers, backed by a tiny handful of wealthy financiers. These bad coders and their backers have done more damage to computing, the Internet and freedom than all the virus authors, spammers and crackers combined.

The laws that will define the information age

"The fact that we're having this discussion at all is a symptom of the polarizing effect that Bush and his top dogs have had on the United States since assuming office and even more so in the hard-right free-for-all that followed the Sept. 11 attacks."

Ted Rall IS the mainstream voice of American communism, and as with all political extremes, unsubstantiated paranoid conspiracy theories are par for the course on ANY day, regardless of any "polarizing effect" offered by the current environment. The radical left is almost indistinguishable from the radical right, especially in this regard.

Having said that, I *LOVE* paranoid conspiracy theories, and this is a particularily GOOD one. A political link to the Ron Brown plane crash! A missing black box! This is the stuff that the Art Bell show is made of! So, I heartily recommend this one. Imagine if its true! What can we expect come 2004? Oh, the drama!

Yahoo! News - THE (POSSIBLE) ASSASSINATION OF PAUL WELLSTONE

"There are a number of words and phrases which we recommend avoiding, or avoiding in certain contexts and usages. The reason is either that they are ambiguous, or that they imply an opinion that we hope you may not entirely agree with. "

The jargon of copyright. There are some very interesting observations in here about the BSD license, intellectual property, etc... Some counter jargon is offered. I don't like a lot of it. People say "Open Source" because they don't want to imply "Free as in Beer." There needs to be a word that means "you can do whatever you want with the code" that doesn't also mean "we're giving the code away for free." There needs to be a word that encompases Copyrights and patents without implying property. There needs to be a word that replaces "theft" and "piracy" when discussing the unauthorized use of copyrights and patents. (I fear even saying "unauthorized use." We need more words...)

Confusing Words and Phrases that are Worth Avoiding - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)

I have an answer: movie buffs. "

Thank you Captain Obvious. Why the hell is it that Kevin Kelly gets published in the New York Times for pointing out something so plain that one wonders what Mr. Valenti was thinking when he said it. Is it because he is rich and famous, or is it simply because he bothered to write them? I think its the former more then that later.

I might ask Mr. Valenti if he owns a fork. And if so, if the company that made his fork has a patent on forks, and if not, why said company went to the expense of producing and distributing forks without having a patent to prevent competition.

Making My Own Music

"They say that you know you're in a stock bubble when your cab
driver is giving you stock advice. And right now, looking around,
OK, it's no big surprise that your politicians are weasels and
your CEOs, because those are the people who even try to get those jobs in the first place.

But once you start noticing that your historians are making stuff up and your figure-skating judges are rigging their events, and your priests are dating children and having better sex lives than rock stars, that's what I call a bubble. That's the cab driver giving you stock tips.

I think that we're in this gigantic, unprecedented bubble of weaselness. "

I wish I was old enough to know whether this is a new phenomenon or whether things have always been this way.

Salon.com Technology | Dilbert's a weasel and so are you

"I doubt if the average American knows enough about Canada to make a reasoned assessment, what the pros and cons might be," said Waller. "There's really an abysmal level of ignorance about Canada in the United States so I don't know what conclusions you can reach."

From a historical perspective, there hasn't been a real push by Americans for annexation since the 19th century, he added. "

The recommendation of this article is obvious troll bait, but I'll respond anyway.

Most Americans view their country as being better then other countries. Canada in particular is viewed as being silly because, other then being "better then" Canadians, Americans don't really see themselves as being otherwise different, so whats the point?

Thats actually a good question. The fact is that Canada is really two countries: 1. British North America. 2. French North America.

Either identity in and of itself would be a lot more interesting then what Canada has got. Being British means something significant culturally which Americans try very hard not to be. (Ever wonder WHY Americans spell colour wrong?? It was intentional and deliberate.) Being French is even more so obviously not being American.

But, in order to maintain national cohesion, Canada, in the last 40 years, and tried very hard to eliminate these cultural identities. If not for this effort, Canada would not exist, and the economic implications of that would be bad for everyone concerned. The new national identity that replaces the old two is one which is scarcely 30 years old. It simply doesn't have enough history or uniqueness to present a real solid creed that people can identify as being "not American."

Of course, most people OUTSIDE the United States hold the two countries in a very different light. Mostly this is because, again, Americans tend to view themselves as being better then other cultures. Other cultures respond to this with resentment. So, liking Canadians is a way to identify with what you like about American culture without having to sacrifice your resentment.

On the other hand, what this professor is afraid to say is that the 38% of Americans who support "annexing Canada" are simply being bumptious. The fact is that if the U.S. "annexed" Canada the Repubicans would never win another election and the U.S. would loose a powerful associate in international relations, with no real economic benefit for either side as the border is fluid anyway.

--

In rereading this I should add that this view of Canada is quite Euro-centric. Immigration policies in the last 20 years have had a dramatic impact on the country's cultural makeup, and the Native Americans in Canada are increasingly politically savvy and culturally significant. Canada is, in fact, at the very start of a melting pot phase which could make the traditional french/english dichotomy insignificant. Its also possible that these people are simply using Canada as a generational stepping stone toward moving into the US. It will take several generations for this to play out and it will be interesting to see what differences (if any) emerge between the two countries over that time. I think that the amount of diversity that currently exists in Canada has the potential to produce some very interesting results verses the slowed diversification of the US, where the dominant English culture strongly resists threats. Unfortunately, the results of this are measured in generations and may not be apparent in my life-time.

Should the US annex Canada?

I began by aiming an inexpensive laser pointer directly into the lens of a video camera. The results were striking.

This work has a certain "Steve Mann meets Ross Anderson" appeal to it.

Camera Zapper

"I am happy, although a tad superstitious, to announce that the 13th Annual Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy will begin on April 1 and run through April 4, 2003 in New York City. "

This would be a really good excuse to get to hang out in New York for a week. On the other hand, April 1st plus 13 plus NYC = a hell of a lot of bad mojo...

Computers, Freedom and Privacy 2003