JotForm’s domain suspended for user-generated content

February 16, 2012 — xanthippa

JotForm is a web company that lets people easily generate forms for whatever they need.  Now, their domain has been siezed and their site has been blocked in a SOPA-style action.  From the JotForm blog:

‘UPDATE: Many people on the comments assumed the content was posted by us. This can happen to any site that allows public to post content. SOPA may not have passed, but what happened shows that it is already being practiced. All they have to do is to ask Godaddy to take a site down. We have 2 millions user generated forms. It is not possible for us to manually review all forms. This can happen to any web site that allows user generated content.’

(Emphasis added by me.)

So, here we have yet another confirmation that despite of SOPA itself having been scrapped, the practices it was normalizing already exist and are being followed by state agents.

This is outrageous on so many levels…and yet, it is even worse on the other side of the pond…

We must shine the light under all these proverbial rocks, or we’ll be overrun by the creepy-crawlies!

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Warrantless surveillance is becoming a reality in Canada

February 14, 2012 — xanthippa

Oh, I know I cannot write this up in a way to do this topic justice – mostly because it sends my blood pressure so dangerously high.  After all, blind rage is the only reasonable response to a minister claiming that those whodare to voice reservations about a proposed law that would make mincemeat out of civil liberties are no better than child molesters.

Because that is exactly what he is saying.

OK – I’m about to loose my temper…again…and not finish this post…

ARRRRGGGHHHH!

Resorting to the ‘do it or you hate children and kick puppies’ is the last resort of a bully who knows he cannot defend his position based on the issues!

AAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!

YES!  It actually IS supposed to be difficult to deprive people of their liberties:  that is why cops have to follow all them silly rules!!!  Taking the rules away will not make one child safer, while at the same time, it will make all of us a little less safe!

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!

Michael Geist has a good write-up on this – with lots of excellent and informative links.  Read him – it’ll make more sense than I can.

As you ponder this, also take a peek at this.

THAT is the root of the problem:  the system lacks accountability!

Actually, that article just might explain a lot about the minister’s attitude:  they have already started to build a huge electronic surveillance system.  Parts of it have been operational for years!

All the bluster now is to hide that they have as yet to pass the laws to make it legal…

 

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OpenMedia.ca: Which Telecom Giant thinks you should pay more?

February 6, 2012 — xanthippa

From OpenMedia.ca:

The Big Three are ripping us off and using the money to manipulate Canadians and the government.

As we’ve been saying, the Big Three cell phone companies have a plan to price-gouge Canadians by shutting out small competitors1. Now they’re unleashing a misinformation campaign to muzzle your voice.

For example,

    1. Rogers recently bought and paid for a trumped-up study2 that wrongly implies Canadians (you) can afford to pay more for telecom services.

 

  1. Rogers just took to the courts to argue that Canada’s false advertising rules violate the telecom giant’s freedom of expression! This after being caught red-handed and fined $10,000,000 dollars for misleading cell phone advertising.3

Will you let them get away with it?

With these two acts of extreme arrogance, Rogers has demonstrated that they will go to ridiculous lengths to tighten their stranglehold on communications and raise prices.

Some say mobile is the future of the Internet and communications. We have to stop the Big Three from creating a command and control communications market with tight contracts, content controls, price-gouging overage fees, and disrespectful customer service.

The government could make a decision on this at any moment. Sign the Stop The Squeeze petition now.

With hope and determination,

Steve, on behalf of your OpenMedia.ca Team

P.S. Unlike Big Telecom, we listen to Canadians. Some of you have expressed that we should provide more details in our messages. We heard you—here’s some more detailed background information:

    1. Cell phone companies require low-frequency wireless spectrum to deliver the latest mobile devices to customers. There is a new block of 700 MHZ spectrum that will be available for use through an auction later this year and the government is about to decide who will have access to the spectrum.The Big Three providers are sitting on more than enough spectrum to do deliver their services to Canadians (including those in rural areas). They want the government to take a do nothing approach and allow the Big hree to control essential spectrum and shut out independent competitors. You can also check out CTV News coverage of this issue here.
    2. Lemay Yates recently released a report, bought and paid for by Rogers, that suggests Canadians have better Internet speed, availability and pricing than our global counterparts. But this research directly contradicts many other independent reports (from the OECD, Harvard, the New America Foundation, Akamai, and more) that show Canada falling woefully behind on key metrics like price and speed.

 

  1. According to the Vancouver Sun: “Rogers Communications Inc. is asking an Ontario court to strike down part of a federal law requiring a company to have ‘adequate and proper’ tests of a product’s performance before advertising claims about the product — on the grounds that it violates its freedom of expression.”

Now that you know the details, it’s time to act.

Support OpenMedia.ca
OpenMedia.ca is a non-profit organization that relies on donations from people like you to operate. Our small but dedicated team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way to make your voice heard. Please donate today.
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ThunderF00t: DMCA abuse? YouTube says – Not our problem.

February 4, 2012 — xanthippa
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CBC uses copyright law to silence a blogger, BlazingCatFur, and its competitor, Sun Media

February 3, 2012 — xanthippa

It is difficult to believe that CBC – the government owned and taxpayer subsidised media giant which dominates the Canadian airwaves – would use copyright laws in order to silence its critics.  After all, respectable journalists and honest media companies understand the danger censorship laws pose to our society in general and their existence in particular.

But, that is exactly what they are doing…

Sad, but true.

Draw your own conclusions about the CBC.

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Slashdot: Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist!

February 3, 2012 — xanthippa

Here is another example of the Western governments’ war on its citizens.

Yes, war.

It sickens me that governments are now openly saying that if you shield your screen from the view of others, this makes you a terrorism suspect!

This creates precisely the type of environment where hacker-vigilaties will be not just tolerated, but positively embraced by a population that feels increasingly under attack by the very institutions created to ensure their individual rights.

Let’s not make any mistakes about it:  it is not Twitter and Google who are increasingly censoring us, the members of online communities.  Even though they facilitate access to the virtual world of the web, they are themselves physical corporations which exist in the real world, very much subject to the whims of real-world governments.

As such, they are subject to the arbitrary rules which various governments impose on corporations operating within their physical boundaries.

It is unreasonable for us to expect that these corporations will put the freedom on the internet above their ability to physically survive…

So, you may blame them for buckling – but don’t blame them for imposing the censorship itself:  the blame lies directly with our governments, our regulating bodies, and us, the citizens, who permit this encroachment!

The solution?

We must all fight to prevent all governments from usurping jurisdiction over the internet, the way they have been doing!

How?

I don’t know.  Yes, I have been thinking about this for a long time, but there simply is no clear answer.

The easiest solution I suspect would be to continue the efforts to create alternatives to the ‘pipelines’ that ISPs use to deliver internet connections, but the more people try to solve this, the more actual attempts there are to make the web truly uncontrollable and impossible to be regulated by anyone or anything anywhere, the better chance there is of success.

So – keep your elective representatives responsible – and keep hacking!

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Pirate Bay founders cannot appeal, change domain name from .org to .se

February 1, 2012 — xanthippa

Two related stories from TorrentFreak update us on what has been happening in Sweden in the Pirate Bay saga.

First, the founders have not been permitted to appeal their case, so their conviction stands.  (This should put fear into all of us, because what they were doing was legal under Swedish law – they were only charged and prosecuted because of pressure from the US movie industry.)

Second, now that their court case is concluded, they have changed their domain from .org to .se in order to prevent seisure.

If you don’t know the back story, perhaps you should ‘Steal This Film’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKyuFJgGxJc&feature=colike

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Another example where copyright laws are being used to censor one’s critics

January 31, 2012 — xanthippa

Yes, ThunderF00t and William Lane Craig have some serious disagreements on the topic of science.  And both have been speaking up on this topic on YouTube.

ThunferF00t is a bona-fide scientist, with the credentials to prove it.

William Lane Craig is a theologian, self-described philosopher and calls himself ‘Dr.’.

They got into a bit of a spat – ThunderF00t used clips of Craig’s videos in his rebuttal videos:  this is perfectly legal and ‘protected se’ under the DMCA rules.  Despite this, someone has, on behalf of Dr. Craig, filed false DMCA claims against ThunderF00t and others.  (We know they know their claims are false because they have filed these DMCA notifications many times on the same groungs – even after being repeatedly told that this use is not a violation of their copyright – yet they continue filing…)

The purpose of these types of actions is clear:  to force the filer’s critics to spend so much time and energy fighting against these false claims that they will not have the time and energy to criticize him.

The reason we must pay attention to this is because it demonstrates how laws already passed with the good intent to protect copyright are already being abused to stifle speech – and these laws are nowhere near as intrusive as the ailed SOPA bill was…and we all know that those promoting these tools of censorship will not stop.  They will simply try to pass these types of laws more stealthily, a tiny increment at a time.

Constant vigilance!

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US Judge orders a person to divulge her password

January 27, 2012 — xanthippa

This is an interesting story with wide-ranging implications.

Police suspected a woman of fraud and, with a warrant, siezed her computers.  One of these computers was password protected and running PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) security software so the police IT experts were not able to ese the usual back doors to crack it.  The police believed that this computer contained data that would incriminate their suspect, Ramona Fricosu.

What to do?

The Colorado police went to a judge and got an order compelling Ms. Fricosu to reveal the password to the police.

This is highly problematic, on several fronts.  The PopSci article quotes the DOJ’s :

“Failing to compel Ms. Fricosu amounts to a concession to her and potential criminals (be it in child exploitation, national security, terrorism, financial crimes or drug trafficking cases) that encrypting all inculpatory digital evidence will serve to defeat the efforts of law enforcement officers to obtain such evidence through judicially authorized search warrants, and thus make their prosecution impossible.”

The other side – both the defense and the civil liberties groups whose attention was turned to this case – has, in my never-humble-opinion, a much more solid position:

“The Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination is not necessarily a right to prevent you from giving bad things over to the government, but you are protected from disclosing your thoughts,” said Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed an amicus brief in this case. “We argued that providing access to the contents is the equivalent to her ‘emptying the thoughts of her mind,’ because it would require her password.”

What a can of worms this one is…

Thoughts?

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You’ve got to fight for your right to jailbreak

January 26, 2012 — xanthippa

Imagine you buy a cake mix and then don’t follow the recipe on the box.  You could risk ‘sub-optimal results’ – but that is it.

How different would our world be if you were also facing jail time?

What if not following the manufacturer’s instruction – even just to add chocolate chips to the mix – meant that you could be arrested and criminally charged?

Well, that is actually quite similar to what used to happen to people who used their electronic devices in slightly different ways than what the manufacturer said they should.  For various reasons, the manufacturers of electronic devices argued that even though a person has purchased and 100% owns an electronic device, they are not allowed to add the ‘chocolate chips’ (like, say, Linux) to ‘the cake mix’ in a process so persecuted, it has been dubbed ‘jailbreaking’.

Why are the manufacturers opposed to this?  It really just boils down to a loss of control over their customer, making it harder for the companies to spy on their customers to obtain loads of data they could monetize…

Luckily, consumer (we really should say ‘citizen’) groups have won this battle:  jailbreaking smartphones became OK through an exemption in the DMCA.

A temporary exemption.

Which is about to run out…

bunnie Huang, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has drafted a letter and a petition to extend the jailbreaking exemption, both in time and in scope:

‘Three years ago, the Copyright Office agreed to create an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act so that folks could jailbreak their smartphones. But that exemption is about to expire. We need you to renew that exemption and expand it to cover jailbreaking gadgets with similar computation potential. These are all siblings to the PC, yet unlocking their potential as versatile and powerful computers is burdened with legal murkiness.’

You can sign the petition here.

Unless, of course, you don’t think people should be allowed to add chocolate chips to their cake mix…

 

Posted in freedoms, technology. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »
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