MEDIA ALERT -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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.

Rattle: I am going to be somewhere in the northeast/atlantic region while this is taking place, and unable to attend in person. I would highly appreciate it if someone present with a cell phone that has speaker phone capability could relay me the talk. I can mute the phone on my end and be able to hear the content. Now would be a very good time for everyone in contact with the media to send them a reminder about the debate. People need to make sure this is in their Monday morning calandar.

More information:

* Atlanta High Crimes Investigation Association web page
* SecurityFocus Article
* ForensicFocus Thread
* MemeStreams Thread #1
* MemeStreams Thread #2
* Bill Text

Update: There is an unconfirmed report that the Governor has vetoed the bill.

Debate on HB1259 in Kennesaw

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

Decius has been following this situation for awhile now. He is extremely knowledgeable about export restrictions, so I strongly suggest posing any questions you have about these bills in this thread.

Tonight, I thought I'd check up on the bill's status. Apparently its still a live issue as its being discussed in the press. Much to my suprise, I also learned that another bill, called the Global Internet Freedom Act, was proposed at the same time as the Global Online Freedom Act, and it does exactly what I was thinking we ought to do. This bill funds research on content filtering and filtering subversion to the tune of $100 million over two years! For some reason the bill appears twice on Thomas, once as HR2216 and once as HR4741. I think the texts are the same but I haven't checked line for line. I like this quote:

It is the sense of Congress that the United States should... deploy, at the earliest practicable date, technologies aimed at defeating state-sponsored and state-directed Internet jamming by repressive foreign governments and the intimidation and persecution by such governments of their citizens who use the Internet.

Here, Here! Kathryn Cramer, who I link above calling for censorware to be added to the USML, also calls HR4741 "lame." I could not disagree more. HR4741 has a much better chance of impacting the real situation on the ground in these countries then HR4780, for the aformentioned reason. The pricetag is expensive, much more then I would have asked for, but I'll bet the impact of that expenditure on the U.S. economy would be dwarfed by the impact of HR4780, which makes it illegal to host Internet connected computers inside of any country designated as a censoring state.

So, in sum, if you're talking to your representative, I say No on HR4780 (without serious revision), but Yes on HR2216/HR4741.

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

A new law in Georgia on private investigators now extends to computer forensics and computer incident response, meaning that forensics experts who testify in court without a PI license may be committing a felony.

Coverage at Security Focus.

Forensic felonies

New technology is "encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft," Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities."

Willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

But one of the more controversial sections may be the changes to the DMCA. Under current law, Section 1201 of the law generally prohibits distributing or trafficking in any software or hardware that can be used to bypass copy-protection devices. (That section already has been used against a Princeton computer science professor, Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov and a toner cartridge remanufacturer.)

Smith's measure would expand those civil and criminal restrictions. Instead of merely targeting distribution, the new language says nobody may "make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess" such anticircumvention tools if they may be redistributed to someone else.

When the Attorney General raises the specter of terrorism in the context of laws which primarily related to p2p file trading networks, its time to stop taking the Attorney General seriously. He is obviously not a serious person.

As for Lamar Smith, he is responsible for 2004's round of rock stupid DNS WHOIS legislation.

Congress readies DMCA ][

Congratulations to Elonka on making prime coverage in the New York Times ...

For nearly 16 years, puzzle enthusiasts have labored to decipher an 865-character coded message stenciled into a sculpture on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency's headquarters in Langley, Va. This week, the sculptor gave them an unsettling but hopeful surprise: part of the message they thought they had deciphered years ago actually says something else.

On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Sanborn left a phone message for Elonka Dunin, a computer game developer who also runs an e-mail list for enthusiasts trying to solve the "Kryptos" puzzle. For the first time, Mr. Sanborn had done a line-by-line analysis of his text with what Mr. Gillogly and Mr. Stein had offered as the solution and discovered that part of the solved text was incorrect.

Within minutes, Ms. Dunin called back, and Mr. Sanborn told her that in the second section, one of the X's he had used as a separator between sentences had been omitted, altering the solution. "He was concerned that it had been widely published incorrectly," Ms. Dunin said.

Ms. Dunin excitedly started sending instant messages ...

Another CIA leak?! Can't these people keep a secret? Shesh!

Ok. So let me see if I am following correctly. I'll translate into Rummy.. As I understand it, there are known knows, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. This was a known known intelligence, that turned out to include an unknown known error due to Sanborn. Now the full information is in the hands of hackers and terrorists everywhere, looking to break the CIA cafeteria.

Information about anything in regard to the CIA cafeteria must be heavily protected, and must not leak into the public domain.

And now, your moment of zen.

Good job Elonka. You rock.

A Break for Code Breakers on a C.I.A. Mystery

Thomas Dichter has published an essay that is critical of "microfinance" -- the practice of making small loans to poor people in developing countries, the funds from which are intended to bootstrap entrepreneurial ventures, thus providing lasting means to move to self-reliance.

This is interesting. I've recently jumped on the microfinance bandwagon, in terms of thinking its a key piece of the puzzle needed to start making a dent in global poverty. I have not yet had the chance to read this article closely and think about it. I've only browsed over it. I'll probably have more to say later.

The first thing that comes to mind as a comment, is this seems to be looking at microfinance as a whole, and not putting the focus on its usage in a particular market. Not all the global poor are in the same situation. There are some key factors in the equation that must be in place in order for a microfinance strategy to work. A key one, is a non-corrupt government. If people can't trust the state, they are certainly not going to trust the bank. It also requires something along the lines of SHG communities in place. In the same way that everyone needs investment education and advice, any community that is going to adopt any form of modern banking or lending, needs to be taught and understand how it works.

These factors all limit the number of places such strategies can be crafted drastically. I'd like to see an India specific critique along these lines. Microfinance is not just a matter of going somewhere and giving out small loans. There is much that must come with it in order for it to have the desired affect.

Boing Boing: Does microcredit help the developing world

The US Census Bureau, due to issues related to the separation of church and state, does not ask questions related to faith or religion on the decennial census. Accordingly, there are few sources of comprehensive data on church membership and religious affiliation for the United States. Perhaps the leading organization to address this gap is the Glenmary Research Center, which publishes Religious Congregations and Membership in the United States, 2000. The following series of county-level choropleth maps, which reveals the distribution of the larger and more regionally concentrated church bodies, draws on this resource. The maps are in GIF format.

Map Gallery of Religion in the United States

To those of you who don't know, our country has never been served by a more competent and professional military. For that reason, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent statement that "we" made the "right strategic decisions" but made thousands of "tactical errors" is an outrage. It reflects an effort to obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for failure to those who have been resolute in fighting. The truth is, our forces are successful in spite of the strategic guidance they receive, not because of it.

Why Iraq Was a Mistake