Wednesday, January 11, 2006

PM threatens Iran in nuclear row. Blair says it is 'likely' the UK, the US and European allies will seek to refer Iran to the UN security council over its nuclear programme. [Guardian Unlimited] 10:04:53 PM    comment []

What the Fair Use exception to copyright really means for independent filmmakers [unmediated] 10:03:42 PM    comment []

Why Do Some Turks Have Bird Flu Virus but Aren't Sick? While panic-stricken coverage focuses on the dire pandemic awaiting us, there are suggestions that avian flu may not be as deadly as currently thought and that many mild cases may be going undetected. Technorati tags: emerging disease avian bird flu   [Follow Me Here...] 10:02:57 PM    comment []

NSA's Tracking Calls. ABC News reports the story of Russell Tice, NSA whistleblower who alleges illegal spying. For 20 years, Tice worked in the shadows as he helped the United States spy on other people's conversations around the world. Tice says the technology exists to track and sort through every domestic and international phone call as they are switched through centers, such as one in New York, and to search for key words or phrases that a terrorist might use. "If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation," Tice said, "the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you pull it out of the system for processing." According to Tice, intelligence analysts use the information to develop graphs that resemble spiderwebs linking one suspect's phone number to hundreds or even thousands more. President Bush has admitted that he gave orders that allowed the NSA to eavesdrop on a small number of Americans without the usual requisite warrants. But Tice disagrees. He says the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is used. video report [Smart Mobs] 10:02:48 PM    comment []

Declan McCullagh E-annoyance. aka, Declan McCullagh Is At It Again. Some assorted debunking, from various lawyers: http://volokh.com/posts/1136873535.shtml [Orin Kerr, January 10, 2006 at 1:12am] A Skeptical Look at "Create an E-annoyance, Go to Jail": Declan McCullagh has penned a column that is custom-designed to race around the blogosphere. It begins: "Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime. It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity. ... [ed: snip]" This is just the perfect blogosphere story, isn't it? It combines threats to bloggers with government incompetence and Big Brother, all wrapped up and tied togther with a little bow. Unsurprisingly, a lot of bloggers are taking the bait. Skeptical readers will be shocked, shocked to know that the truth is quite different. ... [I can't help but think that when Orin Kerr at "Volokh Conspiracy" writes a post like the above, you know Declan has been utterly egregious.] http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/01/annoy_someone_o.html#comments Daniel Solove Declan's article is misleading. The provision extends a telephone harassment law to apply to email. Declan describes the provision as applying whenever a person "annoys" another: "A new federal law states that when you annoy someone on the Internet, you must disclose your identity." But that's not what the law says. Instead it provides: "Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both." Note that "annoy" is part of the intent element of the statute -- it requires the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass. Far from an anti-anonymity provision that applies whenever a person annoys another, it is merely a prohibition on harassment. Declan writes: "In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name." I don't see any basis for the law to apply in this instance. There's a legislative summary here: http://www.gop.gov/Committeecentral/bills/hr3402.asp To strengthen stalking prosecution tools, this section expands the definition of a telecommunications device to include any device or software that uses the Internet and possible Internet technologies such as voice over internet services. This amendment will allow federal prosecutors more discretion in charging stalking cases that occur entirely over the internet. [Sigh .. Why should I bother? What good does it do? It'll be the exact same credulity all around the next time Declan McCullagh makes up a story] [Infothought] Thanks for taking the time, Seth. I didn't have it in me this week. 6:16:47 AM    comment []

US warns Iran in nuclear row. World: Iran risks sanctions by restarting nuclear research, says US. [Guardian Unlimited] 6:08:21 AM    comment []

On Education: Bitter Lesson: A Good School Gets an 'F'. The universe Public School 48 in the South Bronx gets evaluated in has little to do with the real world. By MICHAEL WINERIP. [NYT > Education] 6:07:50 AM    comment []

USPTO to work more closely with open source developers. Xeni Jardin: In today's New York Times, John Markoff reports on plans for the US Patent and Trademark Office to work with open-source software developers to "improve the quality of software patents." Snip: The patent office has come under increasing pressure in recent years from critics who contend that it issues patents without adequate investigation of earlier inventions. As a result, conflicts over published patents have loosed an avalanche of intellectual property litigation. At a meeting last month with companies and organizations that support open-source software (software that can be distributed and modified freely), including I.B.M., Red Hat, Novell and some universities, officials of the patent office discussed how to give patent examiners access to better information and other ways to issue higher-quality patents. Two of the initiatives would rely on recently developed Internet technologies. An open patent review program would set up a system on the patent office Web site where visitors could submit search criteria and subscribe to electronic alerts about patent applications in specific areas. The third initiative is focused on the creation of a patent quality index that would serve as a tool for patent applicants to use in writing their applications. It is based on work done by R. Polk Wagner, an intellectual property expert at the University of Pennsylvania. Link [Boing Boing] 6:07:13 AM    comment []

Experiments in distributing content. So the other thing I wanted to try with this presentation was bitTorrent distribution. As I said, I used Prodigem's hosted bitTorrent service. Prodigem seeds the file if there are not at least 3 other seeds out there. In the first day, there was about 120445 MB of completed traffic. Prodigem had transmitted 908 MB. Thus, 99% of the cost of distributing this was born by the audience. (Thanks!) Right now, more than 1600 copies have been distributed. There are about 90 peers open. Thus the meaning of: BitTorrent is a free speech tool. [Lessig Blog] 6:06:30 AM    comment []

LAWRENCE LESSIG COMES TO SECOND LIFE. As promised, the stage has been selected, the avatar has been created, the virtual edition of the book has been published, and the time, date, and place have been set: Date: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 Time: 5:30PM - 7:30PM Pacific Standard/Second Life Time Place: Borrowdale/41/56 (the Pooley Auditorium) New World Notes and Philip Linden welcome renowned Stanford Law Professor, Internet age legal theorist and IP rights expert Lawrence Lessig to Second Life. Interviewed by Philip Linden, Professor Lessig will be here in-world to speak about his latest book, Free Culture, while also seeking feedback from Residents for an upcoming... [New World Notes] 6:06:05 AM    comment []

Words in a space It seems like a good enough time to write in this space again -- the license expires in 24 days. It wouldn't make sense to renew if I don't write here, and for some reason I'm reluctant just to forget about it. Plus, I keep coming across arcane things that I'd like to share. For example, this comprehensive database of the numbers from 1-10 in over 5,000 different languages. You can scan them all, in one mombo file, or study them as grouped by language family. There's even a clickable map. It's mind candy for people who like tracing/speculating about affinities and common origins, as well as for those who prefer revelling in the complexity and variety of human linguistic history. yi er san si wu liu qi ba jiu shi (Mandarin) hana tul set net tasôt yôsôt ilgop yôdôl ahop yôl (Korean) pitö puta mi yö itu mu nana ya könönö töwo (Old Japanese) yksi kaksi kolme neljä viisi kuusi seitsemän kahdeksan yhdeksän kymmenen (Finnish) bat bi hiru lau bost sei zazpi zortzi bederatzi hamar (Basque) moja mbili tatu nne tano sita saba nane tisa kumi (Swahili) tasi lua tolu fa lima ono fitu valu iva sefulu (Samoan) wanji nupa yamni topa zaptan s'akpe s'akowin s'aglohan nepchunka wikchemna (Lakhota)  [Global Suburb] 6:05:23 AM    comment []

California Parents File Suit Over Origins of Life Course. The course is a four-week high school elective on intelligent design, creationism and evolution and is being offered as a philosophy course. By LAURIE GOODSTEIN. [NYT > Education] 6:04:50 AM    comment []

HOWTO convert an Oral B flosser into a vibrating lockpick. Cory Doctorow: Here's a simple recipe for converting a low-cost Oral B "Hummingbird" vibrating flosser into a vibrating lock-pick that can "pop most popular padlocks open in seconds with very little effort." Link (via Make Blog) [Boing Boing] 6:04:30 AM    comment []