Our panelists, all respected Computer Scientists introduce topics as new disclosures are made, and the forum is open to the public for discussion. This site is hosted at the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

I presume Bill Joy will be joining the center any day now? Surely genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics are open to abuse, right? I have to wonder if the panelists realized the fundamental alignment with Joy's argument when they established the Center. There is no mention of Bill Joy on the web site.

This center needs to rapidly expand its scope (and membership) beyond information technology.

Abusable Technologies Awareness Center

To allow citizens to submit intelligence about government-related issues, while maintaining their anonymity. To allow members of the government a chance to participate in the process.

This project is a mixed bag. It looks like the product of a volunteer team that includes some well intentioned folks and others who are just angry.

The CSPAN support tools seem genuinely useful and relatively benign.

In poking fun at TIA, they say, "this works, and this is useful, but we opposed your system because we cherish our privacy. How about a taste of your own medicine? Ha, ha!"

To current government employees, or to those who would consider serving their country, it says, "watch your step, and don't slip up, because I'll be there, just waiting to paint you into a corner."

This is the attitude of an eight year old. If the citizen tipster part of this project were to gain critical mass, which seems unlikely, it would serve to discourage participation in government. People who think like this misunderstand democracy, in my view.

If you don't like your government, step up. Offer to do a better job. Don't just sit there, bitching about it.

Slashdot readers will spend a few days jabbering about this, and then they will move on to the next "big" unimportant thing. The Return of the King, perhaps. They wear their lack of commitment and short attention span like badges on a uniform.

Government Information Awareness

In 1998, the band Rage Against the Machine decried "the thin line between entertainment and war." Today, even that thin line is in danger of vanishing.

Funny, I can't say I ever thought of Rage as a particularly peaceful band.

Through video games, the military and its partners in academia and the entertainment industry are creating an arm of media culture geared toward preparing young Americans for armed conflict. From "Rogue Spear" and "America's Army" to "Raven Shield" and "SOCOM II", with more to come, the military has embraced entertainment titles at the same time the entertainment industry has embraced the military.

It's also possible that I only recently started paying attention.

With military spending budgeted at nearly $400 billion in 2004, a video game industry generating more than $10 billion a year, a transnational entertainment and media industry with annual revenues of some $479 billion, and no public outcry over the militarization of popular culture, the future of such collaborations seems assured.

It's going to be big, big, big! Act now! Operators are standing by! (Do I get extra credit for using the word "transnational" in my essay?)

We need to start analyzing the effects of blurring the lines between war and entertainment.

I mean, I really need to graduate. Have you got a better thesis idea?

Online, SOCOM II has players competing against each other for promotions and encourages them to form gang-like "clans", roaming the electronic halls in search of a good fight. A player can even take on the role of an RPG-armed terrorist!

Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!

The Pentagon Invades Your Xbox

"It was very close."

Blast Narrowly Misses Pakistani President

"Ideas have a gravitational force. You get on the T, and maybe someone's talking about DNA, or biomedicine, or the life of the mind. The Boston intellectual is a young person now who's conversant with biology and with computer science. This is the scientific challenge of the next decade, and the intellectual community for that is here."

Boston's Biotech Moment

In Baghdad, huge crowds celebrated in the streets with gunfire.

Saddam Hussein Captured Alive; Iraqis Celebrate

I understand that in Canada, peer to peer music downloads are now legal.

Is it also legal to answer extremely long, simple, online questionnaires?

Quiz: Color Preferences

The contents of the appendix to the FCC ruling on the Golden Globe Awards case are presented here in visual form.

"Demographics is destiny."

Take note.

(If for some reason this page fails to load at first, just reload.)

Sources of Complaints Against the FCC in the Golden Globe Awards Case

In this Memorandum Opinion and Order, we deny complaints received from the Parents Television Council and from certain individuals who have alleged that various television station licensees aired program material during the "Golden Globe Awards" program on January 19, 2003, that violates the federal restrictions regarding the broadcast of obscene and indecent material.

This is really, really [expletive] funny.

FCC Ruling On Complaints Against Various Broadcast Licensees ...

The Bartleby.com edition of Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body features 1,247 vibrant engravings -- many in color -- from the classic 1918 publication, as well as a subject index with 13,000 entries ranging from the Antrum of Highmore to the Zonule of Zinn.

In case you need a refresher ...

Gray's Anatomy