Tuesday, May 03, 2005

These Aren't the Nodes You're Looking For (Donna Wentworth). Speaking of anonymity on the Net, there's a new EFF event you may be interested in. On May 10th, the guys from Tor will be at 111 Minna Gallery in downtown San Francisco to answer any and all questions you may have about how the Tor "onion-routing" system works -- including how you can help protect privacy and freedom on the Internet by setting up your own Tor node. [Copyfight] 9:01:42 PM    comment []

Iran Says It Will Keep Pursuing Nuclear Technology. At a United Nations conference today, Iran said it was determined to press ahead with uranium enrichment. By DAVID E. SANGERand WARREN HOGE. [NYT > International] 8:57:56 PM    comment []

Rogers is giving away books. I haven't read the book in question, though I'd love to (hint, hint). Above all, I just wanted to take this occasion (I'm guessing the books are gone, anyway, so the alternative theory is that I'm entirely without shame (or, maybe, joking)) to remark on what a good citizen of the Net/blogosphere I've found him to be. I've long said that Net users need good, human filters to make the most of it. (This would be a good place to hyperlink to a discussion of the human element in Google that I've been thinking about but haven't put fingers to keyboard over.) Rogers is a good filter. 8:56:32 PM    comment []

Workplace Surveillance Bill. New South Wales "will be the first Australian state to outlaw unauthorised spying of employees using technologies including video cameras, email and tracking devices with the introduction of the Workplace Surveillance Bill 2005 to state parliament today,"news reports."The new laws will make it a criminal offence to take part in any form of covert surveillance unless an employer can prove they had reasonable suspicion of wrong doing by an employee,"the article says. NSW bans email snooping [Smart Mobs] 8:50:40 PM    comment []

1 Point for Sports Media. It’s no shock to anyone who reads this blog that I’m not a big fan of some in sports media. I have a particular aversion to those who just make things up and try to pass them off as “factpinions” — knowingly wrong information presented by columnists hiding behind the facade of it “just being opinion”. Sam Smith is the all time worse offender, but there was a recent new addition to the list Mike Celizic of MSNBC.com Celizic wrote a column saying I turned down a deal for Shaq. Anyone who listened to any of the 100 interviews I did on the topic this summer knew that we tried, but there never was a deal discussed — Ever. I asked if they would consider trading Shaq to us, the Lakers  said they didn’t have an interest. End of story. I wrote an email to Celizic and we had a back and forth where he said it was purely opinion on his part . It certainly didn’t read like opinion and there were plenty of people emailing me who thought it was a factual report rather than opinion, so I wasn’t the only one who thought it could be misleading. So, I wrote an email to Celizics editor, and wonder of wonder he responded. Not only did he respond, but he told Celizic to run verbatim the email thread that occured between us in his blog and that they would publicize the correction as much as the original article. A big thumbs up to Danny an editor at MSNBC.com for recognizing what happened and using  internet media the way it should be used. Thanks Danny. I’m so impressed, I’m linking to MSNBC.com and what’s his names blog and article rather than reposting it all here! [Blog Maverick] 8:50:14 PM    comment []

Microsoft recruits bloggers to preview Longhorn. Revving its Longhorn marketing engine, Microsoft is forming a team of bloggers who will get early access to prereleases of the operating system and will be asked to review the Windows XP successor. [InfoWorld: Top News] 8:49:57 PM    comment []

Lawmakers Block Women From Voting in Kuwait. Conservative lawmakers effectively killed a measure that would have allowed women to vote in city council elections for the first time. By HASSAN M. FATTAH. [NYT > International] 8:49:57 PM    comment []

Michael Geist comes FACE TO FACE WITH THE GREAT FIREWALL OF CHINA My regular Law Bytes column reflects on a recent trip to China and the frustrations I encountered dealing with censorship of the Internet. The column notes that the experience was a powerful reminder that unfettered Internet access is far more fragile than is commonly perceived and connecting the Chinese firewall to recent events in Canada concludes that it would be mistake to think that the North American Internet will always remain as free as China's is censored. The challenge in the months and years ahead will be to promote a vision of online freedom through lobbying for greater access abroad and rejecting unnecessary and potentially dangerous limits at home. Freely available hyperlinked version at http://www.michaelgeist.ca/resc/html_bkup/may22005.html Toronto Star reg. version at 11:42:56 AM    comment []

New Light on M.I.T. Issues, With a (Gasp!) Biologist at the Helm. Dr. Susan Hockfield, the first woman to head M.I.T., has found herself in the middle of a still-simmering debate over women and science. By CORNELIA DEAN. [NYT > Science] 6:42:09 AM    comment []

Modified Rice May Benefit China Farms, Study Shows. Genetically modified rice could bring huge benefits to Chinese farmers, lowering their costs, improving harvest yields and reducing the use of pesticides. By DAVID BARBOZA. [NYT > Business] 6:41:52 AM    comment []

Urban game with semacodes. GridLockd is an urban game, created by Mohit SantRam, where teams compete to capture grid positions in a half hour. Loosely based on Othello, a two player game of tiles, the game board is made up of 36 unique semacodes placed within intersection points on a 5 block by 5 block city grid. Using their camera phone to photograph a semacode, the first team to send it to semacode@gridlockd.net will win possession of the intersection. Whichever team captures a point first claims the intersection but rivals can claim that intersection by capturing two surrounding intersections. This project is meant to display how semacodes, cameraphones, ad-hoc groups, and social dynamics are effected under time pressure. The work will be at the Spring Show 2005, on May 10-11, in New York (ITP - 721 Broadway, 4th Floor). Via we make money not art [unmediated] 6:41:22 AM    comment []

Dixon Scores 35 and Gives Wizards Fans a Reason to Cheer. Juan Dixon shot 11 of 15 from the field, made all 10 of free throws and grabbed 5 rebounds in the Wizards' 106-99 victory over the Bulls. By DAVE CURTIS. [NYT > Sports] We've got ourselves a series. 6:40:53 AM    comment []

fictional blogs. Betsy Friedrich is writing her senior thesis on fictional blogs, and her blog is a wonderful collection of links to fictional blogs, links to articles about them, and her own ideas and analyses. A treasure trove! [jill/txt] 6:37:45 AM    comment []

An Original (to me) Argument Found Against DVD Expurgation. Sometimes, a piece I've written will pop up in the strangest places. It's not a matter of obscureness, but rather a certain kind of incongruity. I just found the following mention: President Bush signed the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act into law last week. The decision is a victory for the makers of ClearPlay DVD machines and other film-editing devices intended for use in the home. But it could be a setback for companies like CleanFilms and others who edit copyrighted films to make them more "family-friendly"—and then market them to that target audience. ... You can read more about this landmark decision at the Call Center CRM News Blog, at the Infothought blog, at The Hollywood Reporter, and at Public Knowledge. What publication had this set of pointers, including me? ChristianityToday.com Given what I've written on the topic, perhaps I'm being shown the virtue of humility. Anyway, reading that article, I was led to the author's own perspective: Christian commentary - Anti-Smut Machines: Why This Is a Bad Idea The writer makes many good arguments against bowlderization, ones which will be familiar to the typical copyfighting reader. I'll paraphrase them as artistic-integrity, forbidden-fruit, unintended consequences (here, where Christian themes might be expurgated), and so on. All concepts which will be well-known to people who follow the debate. But as a bit of cross-cultural distribution, I'll quote the novel (to me) Christian sin-antibody argument: Censorship does not keep us from doing evil - it just blocks us from seeing it. If we develop a "cover your eyes" response to bad behavior, we are not developing a strength of spirit that resists sin. We are simply ignoring sin, and thus remaining weak and vulnerable. Jesus says it is not what goes into a man that corrupts him, but what proceeds from him that corrupts him. Scripture exhorts us to put on the "full armor of God" so we might resist the schemes of the devil. It does not exhort us to avert our eyes whenever someone's misbehaving. I recognize in this a form of the argument that we are not helped by being isolated from knowledge, but rather should be instructed on how to recognize and fight evil. But I must admit I've never seen anyone put it quite that way before. And seeing a new argument in these debates happens very rarely. [Infothought] 6:37:16 AM    comment []

HOWTO break Win DRM9 Alfie sez, "this kid has managed to crack the Windwos Media DRM9 on the Terminator 2 movie, and he posts a full breakdown of his method." 5. Download Japanese version of WMP9 from Microsoft (same link as 2, but change the language) 6. Doubleclick the downloaded file, it will unpack all installation files to temp directory in your Documents and Settings directory. Get the drmv2clt.dll file and copy it to c:Program FilesWindows Media Player directory. Cancel the Japanese WMP9 installation. 7. Edit lines 9-12 of the drmdbg.ini downloaded from step 4 as written bellow drmv2clt=1; drmclien=0; blackbox=0; indivbox=0; Link (Thanks, Alfie!) [bOing bOing] 6:33:59 AM    comment []

YOUR CHEATING HEART. A survey on the morality of in-world romance provokes several Second Life lessons-- learned, and unlearned. Beaux Grayson was on the sundeck of his home, curled up on the couch with a slender brunette, when his wife walked in. "And went," as Beaux subsequently put it in a message he sent to his Second Life friends, "NUTZ." She demanded to know who this woman in thigh-high boots on the screen was, laying there with her husband's avatar. So Beaux told her. "I gave her the facts (married, English, kids, etc.), but not the name and that we have known... [New World Notes] 6:33:52 AM    comment []