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Jewish Defence League Fundraiser for Marc and Connie Fournier of Free Dominion
July 3, 2012 — xanthippaJewish Defence League Fundraiser for Marc and Connie Fournier of Free Dominion
Monday July 9, 2012, 7:00 pm——9:00 pm
Toronto Zionist Center, 788 Marlee AvenueMarc and Connie Fournier run the site Free Dominion. They have been sued several times by people who want to limit free speech on the Internet. They are certainly not rich. These suits could affect everyone of us who write or comment on the Internet. It’s time to help the Fourniers fight suits from people that promote ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ and the Muslim Brotherhood. Now is the time to fight back.
For more information call JDL Canada at 416-736-7000 or www.jdl-canada.com
via: BlazingCatFur
Net Neutrality Becomes the Law in the Netherlands
May 9, 2012 — xanthippa‘In addition, the law includes an anti-wiretapping provision, restricting internet providers from using invasive wiretapping technologies, such as deep packet inspection (DPI). They may only do so under limited circumstances, or with explicit consent of the user, which the user may withdraw at any time. The use of DPI gained much attention when KPN admitted that it analysed the traffic of its users to gather information on the use of certain apps. The law allows for wiretapping with a warrant.’
Bits of Freedom goes on to explain that with passing this law, Netherlands becomes the first country to implement the EU guidelines on Net neutrality.
This comes shortly after we have had a tangentially related – but nonetheless noteworthy – ruling from EU Court of Justice: No Copyright on Computer Functionality or Computer Languages.
Which only makes sense.
CodeSlinger: The internet is about to get dramatically harder to regulate!
February 27, 2012 — xanthippaIn response to my post about the UN plans to ‘regulate’ the internet, CodeSlinger made a comment which I think deserves a full post of its own:
Good algorithms for dynamic routing through ad hoc wireless mesh networks are already available in the public domain. Most people already have more processing power and bandwidth than they actually use, and the amount of computing power you can buy for a buck just keeps on doubling every 18 months. All this surplus is can be made available to carry other people’s traffic.
The only thing holding back a truly unkillable internet is the fact that most people aren’t willing to spend much money on the uplink side. They will buy a wireless router with enough range to cover their home, but not enough to cover their block. But just let some of these draconian measures pass and see how fast that changes. People will quickly figure out how much better the internet works when everybody is their neighbours’ ISP.
Already, in densely populated areas, we are seeing increasing overlap between the coverage areas of people’s routers and their neighbours’ routers. As this trend accelerates, larger and larger urban areas will de facto become independent sub-networks that cannot be killed or surveiled from outside.
In rural areas, however, the problem is a lot worse because each router has to cover an area that may be miles in diameter in order to achieve overlap. Before you get anywhere near that range, though, you run into CRTC limitations on transmitted power.
And maintaining connectivity between distant population centers is an even bigger problem. However, a German group called the Chaos Computer Club is developing the Hackerspace Global Grid: a system of communications satellites (!) which will interface to inexpensive ground stations that anyone can buy or build.
Here is an article about the project: Hackers plan space satellites to combat censorship.
The internet is about to get dramatically harder to regulate!
YouTube identifies birdsong as copyrighted music
February 27, 2012 — xanthippaReally?
This is just getting silly!
From the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom:
I disputed their claim with YouTube’s system — and Rumblefish refuted my dispute, and asserted that: ‘All content owners have reviewed your video and confirmed their claims to some or all of its content: Entity: rumblefish; Content Type: Musical Composition.’ So I asked some questions, and it appears that the birds singing in the background of my video are Rumblefish’s exclusive intellectual property.”
Warrants? We don’t need no stinking warrants!!!
February 25, 2012 — xanthippaThis is beyond the pale!
Yes, Mr. Levant is correct to raise the spectre of Pavlik Morozov: I was certainly taught in school to live up to his example. But that was on the other side of the iron curtain! There is no room for twisted crap like that in our schools now!
Let you be the first to read it!
I have a gun.
I even volunteered in a school, teaching children how to use a gun, just like mine.
A glue gun, that is.
I have a whole bunch of glue sticks in an ammo box I bought at an army surplus store – partly because I like puns and partly because it is efficient.
I also own a tape gun – it makes wrapping presents more efficient.
And I have two staple guns. (OK, one is my hubby’s, but that makes at least half of it mine, no?)
My kids own guns, too!
From the air-zooka (which ‘shoots’ air, if you are not familiar with it) through a marshmallow gun to water guns…
But if I wanted to own a firearm – an actual gun for shooting bullets – I would not feel obligated to tell ‘the state’. Why? Because I believe, to the core of my being, that the Magna Carta gives me the right to carry whatever arms I think I need to protect my person, family and property. Nothing – no law – can, in my never-humble-opinion – abrogate this natural right to protect myself.
It is precisely because I have the right to carry weapons that police has the power to carry weapons: they derive that right from me, and you, and all the other citizens. Since the government acts as our proxy, it cannot do what each and every one of us does not have the right to do, irrespective of the government.
This equation goes both ways: since the state is acting on our behalf, it cannot do anything we are not free to do. Therefore, if some agents of the state do carry firearms, it therefore follows that each and every citizen has that very same right. If we did not have that right, then the government agents would have nowhere to get that right from.
I recognize I am not expressing this eloquently – following is a video that does a much better job of it:
When all the rhetoric is washed away, at its core, this is about self-ownership.
You’ve got to fight for your right to jailbreak
January 26, 2012 — xanthippaImagine 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…
An urgent appeal from OpenMedia
December 20, 2011 — xanthippaThis is an urgent appeal from OpenMedia – I am forwarding it on to you for your consideration:
We only have 24 hours until key matching support ends. Please sign up now to avoid missing this opportunity.
Become a monthly donor in the next 24 hours and indie ISP Distributel and domain registrar Hover will double your contribution every single month in 2012. Even contributing $3 will make a huge difference. We can’t stress enough how crucial your participation is in sustaining our work fighting for an open and affordable Internet.
Please join us today before this generous matching funds offer ends.
In case you need another nudge, here’s what one of you said in our survey:
“The team at OpenMedia does fantastic work and together we can achieve our goals of keeping the internet affordable and surveillance free…I am proud to be a current and continuing supporter of OpenMedia’s efforts…Our country is entering a very dangerous time and I feel that OpenMedia’s efforts, along with the efforts of supporters and the public, are key to protecting our democracy and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
Together, we stopped the government in their tracks on two key decisions this year: allowing Big Telecom more complete control over Internet pricing in Canada, and including a new online spying scheme in a package of crime reforms. But we’ve received word that lobbyists are working overtime through closed-door meetings to make the Internet more restricted and expensive.
With hope,
Steve, Reilly, Lindsey & Shea
P.S. Join our allies program today and you’ll get to see under the hood of one the most vibrant movements in the country. Join us: http://openmedia.ca/allies
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 