Quotulatiousness

July 24, 2011

No, that’s not suspicious at all . . .

Filed under: China, Government, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:39

. . . when you use backhoes to bury the wreckage before determining the cause of the high speed rail crash:

The wreck on Saturday night killed 35 and injured 210 after a high-speed train lost power for more than 20 minutes and then was rear-ended by another train, according to the Xinhua news agency. Six cars derailed and two fell off a viaduct near the city of Wenzhou.

[. . .]

Photos on the popular Weibo microblogging service showed backhoes burying the wrecked train near the site. Critics said the wreckage needed to be carefully examined for causes of the malfunction, but the railway ministry said that the trains contain valuable national technology and could not be left in the open in case it fell into the wrong hands.

Foreign companies maintain that some crucial technology was stolen from their imported trains. But more importantly to domestic audiences is the perception of a coverup. Initial reports of how the accident occurred are already being partly contradicted by reports in the official media.

July 22, 2011

Has Twitter entered the political sphere?

Filed under: Media, Politics, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:39

There has to be more to the story, but Erick Erickson is quite concerned:

Today, Twitter not only shut down the Empower Texans twitter feed, but it also shut down the twitter feeds of every individual who works for Empower Texans.

Twitter is a private organization. It can do what it wants. But I am very troubled that it did so without explanation and without anyone for Empower Texans to contact.

If this was an orchestrated effort on the part of others to flag Empower Texans as a spam account such that Twitter’s computer system would automatically can it, Twitter has a serious security problem.

It was a man made decision, Twitter has even bigger problems.

July 8, 2011

Oh, it’s not really “censorship”, say Apple fans

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 14:01

Even if Apple is silently censoring their MobileMe email messages:

Writing on the Cult of Mac, John Brownlee reports that Apple applies silent, unpublished content-filters to outgoing MobileMe Email messages, sometimes deleting the messages you send without notifying you. This doesn’t appear to be in Apple’s published terms of using the service, and while an Apple spokesperson has confirmed that this goes on, she disclaims that it is political in nature. The comments on Brownlee’s post are a study in cognitive dissonance from Apple fans, with responses ranging from, “I don’t send politically charged messages so it doesn’t matter,” to “It didn’t happen when I tried it, so it’s not true,” to “All spam filters work this way” (they don’t), and so on.

It’ll be hard to find a way to make this sound nice to folks who aren’t already fully paid-up members of the Apple Fanboy Club.

June 28, 2011

Government attempts to censor and control the internet spawn opposition

Filed under: Government, Liberty, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:06

Loz Kaye makes the point that the recent ratcheting-up of freelance subversion of government and corporate web sites and online communities is a direct reaction to attempts to control the internet:

LulzSec wasn’t an isolated or unique phenomenon. People with passionate beliefs have been using new technological tools to effect change out of a sense of powerlessness. In the last year, I’ve watched 38 Degrees using the strength of association online to change government policy, WikiLeaks force transparency on those who’d rather run from it, even the amorphous mass that is Anonymous taking a stand on whatever issue they feel deserves their attention.

These tools are now themselves under attack. Lord Mandelson’s last gift to us, the Digital Economy Act, is just one of a raft of “three strikes laws” worldwide that threaten to cut off households from the web. Buried in the coalition’s Prevent strategy is the assertion that “internet filtering across the public estate is essential”. Nor is it solely a British issue; Nicolas Sarkozy called for global online governance at the eG8 in his attempt to civilise the “wild west” of the web.

We’re starting to see what this civilising process entails. Open Rights Group revealed that Ed Vaizey and lobbyists held a secret meeting discussing the future of web blocking powers. There was no public oversight and no one asked the net natives. Vaizey has relented a little via Twitter, consenting to open up the discussion — the Pirate Party and I welcome that invitation. It will take more, however, than getting a few NGOs around a table to ease the real sense of anger poisoning the online community.

We’re quickly coming up on a time when we’ll need to enshrine access to the internet (or equivalent data sources) as a formal constitutional right. If we don’t, we will always have this urge to control and to censor on the part of petty authoritarians and bureaucrats.

June 16, 2011

Apple’s lovely little pre-censorship patent

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:47

Oh, I know it’s supposedly intended to prevent iPhone users from filming at concerts and thereby depriving the promoters and performers of theoretical income, but I’m sure the technology will be used — in addition to, or instead — as a way of preventing certain kinds of citizen journalism.

The leading computer company plans to build a system that will sense when people are trying to video live events — and turn off their cameras.

A patent application filed by Apple revealed how the technology would work.

If an iPhone were held up and used to film during a concert infra-red sensors would detect it.

These sensors would then contact the iPhone and automatically disable its camera function.

I mentioned my concern to Jon, who sent me the initial link saying, “That sounds like a straight-from-Steve-Jobs kind of ‘how can we make money from censorship’ brain fart. Want to bet that the next thing it’ll allow is governments to automatically prevent iPhone users from filming police ‘doing their job’?

“Literally ‘nothing to see here’, if the technology works as they imply in the article.”

His response: “My bet is that the government application is the first we’ll see of this technology, not the next.”

Update: Oh, good, it’s not just me seeing the cloud instead of the silver lining — here’s Tim O’Reilly with the same concerns:

Doubtless in response to pleas from the entertainment industry, Apple has patented new technology to disable cellphone video based on external signals from public venues. Now imagine if that same technology were deployed by repressive regimes. Goodbye to one of the greatest tools we’ve yet seen for advancing democracy.

Think for a moment about the pro-democracy impact of cellphone video combined with online services like YouTube [. . .] I hope Apple has the guts and good sense never to deploy this technology, and instead uses the patent to prevent it being implemented by others. Yeah, right! If it were Google, that might be more than a vain hope.

Update, the second: Cory Doctorow chimes in:

An Apple patent describes a system for allowing venue owners to override compliant cameras. The patent describes using an infrared signal that compliant cameras would detect; in the presence of this signal, the device would not allow its owner to activate its record function. It is intended for use at live events and galleries and museums, and it will be a tremendous boon to policemen who shoot unarmed subway riders, despotic armies putting down revolutions as well as anyone else who is breaking the law or exercising coercive power.

June 14, 2011

Yet another call for the government to “do something”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:26

Sean Gabb dissects what is really going on with the current push for the British government to “do something” about the sexualization of children:

The argument I have been putting is fairly simple, and I have not deviated from it in my various appearances. I argue as follows:

1. It is reasonable to assume that anyone who uses the “protecting the kiddies” argument is really interested in controlling adults. Indeed, one of the organisations most active in pushing for controls is Media Watch UK, which used to be called the National Viewers and Listeners Association, and which, led by Mary Whitehouse, spent most of the 1960s, 70, and 80s arguing for censorship of the media.

2. Ratings on music videos will have no effect, as many of these things are now downloaded from the Internet. As for controls on clothing, children will wear what they want to wear, and it will be hard in practice to do anything about it.

3. How children dress and behave is a matter for their parents to control, not the authorities. Doubtless, there are some rotten parents about. But any law of the kind proposed will not be used against a small minority, but against parents in general. It will be one more weapon in the armoury of social control that has already reduced parents to the status of regulated childminders.

4. Authoritarian conservatives deceive themselves when they think the authorities are fundamentally on their side. The moment you ask for a control to be imposed, you put your trust in people you have never seen, who are not accountable to you, who probably do not share your own values, and who will, sooner or later, use the control you have demanded in ways that you find surprising or shocking. The attempted control of clothing, for example, will certainly be made an excuse for the police to drag little girls out of family picnics to photograph the clothes they are wearing, or to measure their heels to see if they are a quarter of an inch too long. Anyone who dismisses this as an absurd claim has not been reading the newspapers. That is how the authorities behave. Even when it is not an abuse in itself, any law will be abused by them.

May 25, 2011

Australia: leading the charge to our over-Nannied future

Filed under: Australia, Bureaucracy, Health, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:31

There once was a time when the popular image of Australia celebrated its rugged, independent, free-spirited approach to life. It’s hard to recognize that in today’s Nanny State paradise:

Last week, the Preventative Health Taskforce published a report which, in its words, launched a ‘crackdown’ on drinking, smoking and the eating of ‘energy-dense, nutrient-poor’ food. This report made 122 recommendations, called for 26 new laws and proposed establishing seven new agencies to change the behaviour of Australians. To take just a few examples related to tobacco, the Taskforce called for the price of 30 cigarettes to rise to ‘at least $20’ (£13) by 2013, for a ban on duty-free sales, a ban on vending machines and a ban on smoking in a host of places including multi-unit apartments, private vehicles and ‘outdoors where people gather or move in close proximity’. They even contemplate a ban on filters and the prohibition of additives that enhance the palatability of cigarettes.

As in so many countries, Australia’s anti-smoking campaign has acted as a Trojan horse in the effort to fundamentally change the relationship between citizen and state. By no means does it end with tobacco. The Taskforce also wants to ban drinks advertising during programmes that are watched by people under 25 — a category so broad as to include virtually every programme — and calls for graphic warnings similar to those now found on cigarette packs to be put on bottles of beer. It also wants the government to establish ‘appropriate portion sizes’ for meals, to tax food that is deemed unhealthy and to hand out cash bonuses to those who meet the state’s criteria of a healthy lifestyle.

And it’s not just the booze and ciggies getting the full Nanny treatment, either. Australia is very concerned about the internet browsing and video game habits of the citizens:

It is the professed concern for the well-being of children that props up so much authoritarian legislation in both hemispheres. This does not just apply to smoking, nor even health issues in general. Australia has a unenviable record of internet censorship, for example, and a national website filter has been proposed to protect children from pornography and gambling. It also has a longer list of banned video games than any other Western democracy. And so if you, as an Australian adult, want to exercise your right to gamble and play violent video games, that’s just too bad. The rights of some hypothetical teenager to enjoy freedom from grown-up pursuits trump your own rights to pursue them.

May 10, 2011

Is Facebook “managing” your friends for you?

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 14:54

An interesting (and potentially disturbing) article from Mike Elgan may help explain why you don’t see as much activity from some of your Facebook friends as you might expect:

Every action you take on Facebook — clicking “Like,” commenting, sharing, etc. — is called an “Edge” internally at Facebook. Each Edge is weighted differently according to secret criteria.

What you need to know is that relationships and content that don’t get enough “Edges” will get “edged” out of existence. Facebook will cut your ties to people — actually end the relationships you think you have — and block content that doesn’t earn enough Edge points.

For example, many Facebook friendships exist solely through reading each other’s Status Updates. An old friend or co-worker talks about a new job, shares a personal triumph like reaching a weight-loss goal, and tells a story on Mother’s Day about how great his mom is. He posts and you read. You feel connected to his life.

Without telling you, Facebook will probably cut that connection. Using unpublished criteria, Facebook may decide you don’t care about the person and silently stop delivering your friend’s posts. Your friend will assume you’re still reading his updates. You’ll assume he’s stopped posting.

Any friends who fail to click or comment on your posts will stop getting your status updates, too. If you have 500 friends, your posts may be actually delivered to only 100 of them. There’s no way for you to know who sees them and who doesn’t.

I don’t use Facebook too often: certainly not every day. My Twitter updates are echoed to Facebook (but not retweets), so I don’t find it surprising that I haven’t seen everyone’s status updates lately: I just assume they’ve scrolled too far down the page by the time I get around to opening Facebook. This article implies that I never had the chance to see many of these status updates because they have “Edged” out of my feed.

Superinjunctions

Filed under: Britain, Law, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:08

British law is already difficult enough for outsiders to suss out, but the recent use of superinjunctions to prevent even the hint that a story is being legally suppressed makes it even tougher:

The high profile are gagging, the press is losing the ability to speak, and now the Twitterati is vomiting up half-digested rumours. All the signs are that Britain is in the grip of the legal virus known as ‘injunctionitis’.

It makes for an unedifying spectacle. In between news of uprisings in the Middle East, the killing of Osama bin Laden and the marriage of Will’n’Kate, the British press has been running another set of stories about what it is forbidden from reporting. The reason for this is the increasingly problematic use of the injunction, a legal prohibition issued by a judge that prevents a particular story from being published. While these have been issued for a few years now with largely little public knowledge — especially after the use of so-called superinjunctions, which forbid people from mentioning the fact that an injunction exists — over the past year or so, the injunction in all its forms has started to make the news all by itself. Which, you’d be correct in thinking, rather defies the point.

In fact, over the past few weeks, the attempts by certain individuals to gag the press has resulted in an outbreak of calculated press indiscretion. There has been the tale of the unnamed English actor who employed the services of Helen Wood, a prostitute whose previous clients include footballer Wayne Rooney. Of course, given the injunction, Wood couldn’t do a proper bonk-and-blab about the actor, but there was enough detail there for a salacious few pages’ worth. Then there was the unnamed Premier League footballer who had allegedly been having an affair with Big Brother 7 victim/star Imogen Thomas. She has since been frequently pictured looking disconsolate in a series of fetching bikinis.

It’s bad enough when the government uses its powers to suppress public discussion of items of importance to “national security” (with the definition as loose as possible). It’s much worse when the courts are allowing private individuals and corporations to have their own version of court-imposed censorship, as there’s no possibility of it being a “national security” issue.

It has not just been the tabloids making news of the unreportable. There has also been the case of ex-Royal Bank of Scotland boss Fred Goodwin who took out a hyper-injunction, which absurdly forbids anyone from even talking about the subject of the injunction to the lawmakers themselves — namely, parliament. (Although, of course, someone did, hence we know about its existence if not any of the details.) And things became even crazier when a prominent member of the media, BBC journalist Andrew Marr, revealed that he himself had violated his own profession’s freedom by taking out an injunction in 2008 to hush up an infidelity. In fact, as The Times gleefully reported, there are over 30 high-profile injunctions currently in operation involving a whole heap of public figures, from footballers to politicians.

So, in at least one area, we’re back to there literally being two different kinds of law, differentiated by the wealth of the plaintiff.

April 4, 2011

“Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war”

Filed under: Government, Liberty, Politics, Religion, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:17

I love the smell of censorship in the morning. It smells like politics:

[Senator Lindsey Graham said] “I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war. During World War II, we had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy. So, burning a Koran is a terrible thing but it doesn’t justify killing someone. Burning a Bible would be a terrible thing but it doesn’t justify murder. Having said that, anytime we can push back here in America against actions like this that put our troops at risk we should do it, and I look forward to working with Senators Kerry, and Reid, and others to condemn this, condemn violence all over the world based on the name of religion. But General Petreaus understand better than anybody else in America what happens when something like this is done in our country and he was right to condemn it and I think Congress would be right to reinforce what General Petreasus said.”

[. . .]

Here’s your answer Senator. No, you don’t need to hold hearings and you don’t need to be looking into ways to limit the free speech rights of American citizens because of the insane reaction of people thousands of miles away who were obviously ginned up by demagogues. War or not, Terry Jones had every right to do what he did.

Jim Geraghty perhaps put it most appropriately:

This pastor, Terry Jones, has a jones for media attention that makes the Kardashians look like J.D. Salinger. He knows that there’s a good chance that tossing the Koran on a pile of charcoal briquettes will make the easily-enraged in far-off lands lash out in that time-tested tradition, killing aid workers, and he doesn’t give a damn. He knows there’s a chance that the Muslim tantrums might put our men and women in uniform at greater risk. He still doesn’t give a damn. He has never given a damn. What, he’s gonna go weak-kneed at the thought of a unanimous Senate resolution?

March 10, 2011

“An opportunity to stop English libel law chilling free speech around the world”

Filed under: Britain, Law, Liberty, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:43

Simon Singh at the Guardian‘s “Comment is Free” site explains just how much the chilling effect of English libel law can obstruct free speech:

. . . it is important to remember that for every case of a scientist or journal who dares to face the ordeal of a libel trial, there are dozens of (or probably hundreds of) others who immediately apologise and retract after a libel threat, or who self-censor in order avoid any risk of libel, which is the so-called chilling effect of libel.

For example, I gave an interview to an Australian medical correspondent at the Melbourne Age about the lack of evidence surrounding homeopathy, but he was unable to quote me in detail because his in-house lawyer was frightened of being sued for libel in London. The only reason this came to light was because the journalist in question wrote a blog describing how tough it was to be a health journalist in Australia when the vulture of English libel law was always circling above.

More worryingly, I recently received an email from an American researcher (whose name I cannot mention) who had worked with a librarian (whose name I cannot mention) to write a paper on the subject of impact factors, the scoring system often used by librarians and others to assess the quality of a research journal. The anonymous researchers cited one journal (whose name I cannot mention) which may be using certain techniques to boost its own impact factor. Impact factors are an important issue, so the paper was sent to a respected British journal (which I shall not name in order to avoid embarrassment) with an international readership. The journal replied: “We regret that we are unable to publish after all because unfortunately it has potential legal implications under UK libel law.”

The anonymous researchers then sent the paper to an American journal (which I shall not name), which also had an international readership and which did agree to publish the paper. Initially, there seemed to be no problem, because the in-house lawyer agreed that the paper did not breach US libel law. However, the lawyer went on to demand that edits were necessary or there would be a serious risk of being sued in London according to English libel law.

The British government is to introduce a new bill to (one hopes) address some of these concerns soon. Let’s hope that they’re paying attention.

February 1, 2011

Egypt still offline in advance of “million-man march”

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Middle East, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:46

Renesys is still reporting almost no internet connectivity to or from known Egyptian sites:

As we observed last week, Egypt took the unprecedented step of withdrawing from the Internet. The government didn’t simply block Twitter and Facebook (an increasingly common tactic of regimes under fire), but rather they apparently ordered most major Egyptian providers to cease service via their international providers, effectively removing Egyptian IP space from the global Internet and cutting off essentially all access to the outside world via this medium. The only way out now would be via traditional phone calls, assuming they left that system up, or via satellite. We thought the Internet ban would be temporary, but much to our surprise, the situation has not changed. One of the few Egyptian providers reachable today, four days after the start of the crisis, is The Noor Group. In this blog, we’ll take a quick look at them and some of the businesses they serve.

January 31, 2011

Showing their true colours?

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Law, Liberty, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:42

To mark the Egyptian government’s shutdown of cellphone and internet access to their angry citizenry, the US government wants to have the power to do the same. Subtle, eh?

Legislation granting the president internet-killing powers is to be re-introduced soon to a Senate committee, the proposal’s chief sponsor told Wired.com on Friday.

The resurgence of the so-called “kill switch” legislation came the same day Egyptians faced an internet blackout designed to counter massive demonstrations in that country.

The bill, which has bipartisan support, is being floated by Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The proposed legislation, which Collins said would not give the president the same power Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is exercising to quell dissent, sailed through the Homeland Security Committee in December but expired with the new Congress weeks later.

The bill is designed to protect against “significant” cyber threats before they cause damage, Collins said.

Got to admire the balls of brass required to introduce legislation to do something in America at exactly the same time the US government is demanding that Egypt restore their citizens’ internet access. Breathtaking hypocrisy.

Update: By way of American Digest, a most appropriate image:

January 29, 2011

Wired How-to: Get back on the internet after a government shut-down

Filed under: Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:47

A post at the Wired How-to wiki on getting back online after your government attempts to shut down internet access:

Scenario: Your government is displeased with the communication going on in your location and pulls the plug on your internet access, most likely by telling the major ISPs to turn off service.

This is what happened in Egypt January 25 prompted by citizen protests, with sources estimating that the Egyptian government has cut off approximately 88 percent of the country’s internet access. What do you do without Internet? Step 1: Stop crying in the corner. Then start taking steps to reconnect with your network. Here’s a list of things you can do to keep the communication flowing.

This article is part of a wiki anyone can edit. If you have advice to add, please log in and contribute.

January 28, 2011

Egypt goes dark, shuts down DNS servers

Filed under: Liberty, Middle East, Politics, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:40

Updates added to the bottom of this post

The Egyptian government is attempting to foil protests by eliminating internet traffic. Renesys reports:

Confirming what a few have reported this evening: in an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet. Critical European-Asian fiber-optic routes through Egypt appear to be unaffected for now. But every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world. Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr, and all their customers and partners are, for the moment, off the air.

At 22:34 UTC (00:34am local time), Renesys observed the virtually simultaneous withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks in the Internet’s global routing table. Approximately 3,500 individual BGP routes were withdrawn, leaving no valid paths by which the rest of the world could continue to exchange Internet traffic with Egypt’s service providers. Virtually all of Egypt’s Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide.

I have seen very little traffic coming to this site from Egypt before the DNS server shutdown (under 40 unique visitors last year, according to FlagCounter), so the following information isn’t likely to be of direct assistance to Egyptians, but hopefully some can be filtered onwards.

The first suggestion (from Shereef Abbas) is to use Google’s Public DNS 2 to change “your DNS ‘switchboard’ operator from your ISP to Google Public DNS”.

John Perry Barlow suggests “more tools to access blocked websites and maintain anonymity”: http://jan25.in/how-to-access-blocked-websites-by-government and https://www.torproject.org/download/download.html.en.

Update: Vice President Joe Biden appears to be missing a wonderful opportunity to shut up.

Biden urged non-violence from both protesters and the government and said: “We’re encouraging the protesters to – as they assemble, do it peacefully. And we’re encouraging the government to act responsibly and – and to try to engage in a discussion as to what the legitimate claims being made are, if they are, and try to work them out.” He also said: “I think that what we should continue to do is to encourage reasonable… accommodation and discussion to try to resolve peacefully and amicably the concerns and claims made by those who have taken to the street. And those that are legitimate should be responded to because the economic well-being and the stability of Egypt rests upon that middle class buying into the future of Egypt.”

Egypt’s protesters, if they’re paying attention to Biden at all, will certainly be wondering which of their demands thus far have been illegitimate.

Update, the second: Live blogging the protests at the Guardian. And several sources are recommending the coverage streamed online from Al Jazeera’s English-language site.

Update, the third: The effectiveness of Egypt’s internet blackout shows why giving the American president (or any national leader) an internet “kill switch” is such a bad idea. To most of us, anyway. I’m sure that to some people it’s an argument in favour.

Update, the fourth: National Post has a graphic showing the locations of the reported activity:


Click to enlarge

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