Loss of Privacy

The RIAA, in their infinite wisdom, has sued a man who defends people against RIAA lawsuits.  Ray Beckerman is an attorney who blogs about his cases.

The Recording Industry Association of America is declaring attorney-blogger Ray Beckerman a “vexatious” litigator. The association is seeking unspecified monetary sanctions to punish him in his defense of a New York woman accused of making copyrighted music available on the Kazaa file sharing system.

The RIAA said Beckerman, one of the nation’s few attorneys who defends accused file sharers, “has maintained an anti-recording industry blog during the course of this case and has consistently posted virtually every one of his baseless motions on his blog seeking to bolster his public relations campaign and embarrass plaintiffs,” the RIAA wrote (.pdf) in court briefs. “Such vexatious conduct demeans the integrity of these judicial proceedings and warrants this imposition of sanctions.”

So, not only does the RIAA believe that copyright infringement should be punished by astronomical fines and mandatory jail time, they also believe that their lawsuits should not be talked about, freedom of speech is not guaranteed in cases involving them, and lawyers who defend defendants should be prosecuted as well.  These laws do not, however, apply to the RIAA.  They can have as many press releases as they want, no matter whether they are true or not.

In the meantime, we can just keep checking to make sure that the music we listen to isn’t controlled by these idiots and their music cartel.

Last month, Lawrence Lessig mentioned his fears of the possibility of an iPatriot Act.  Today, the UN wants to make this come to fruition.

A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous.

China?  Seriously?

The potential for eroding Internet users’ right to remain anonymous, which is protected by law in the United States and recognized in international law by groups such as the Council of Europe, has alarmed some technologists and privacy advocates. Also affected may be services such as the Tor anonymizing network.

Except the federal government has already set honeypots and sniffing at the exits of Tor, so that’s not really a good alternative right now anyway.

Nearly everyone agrees that there are, at least in some circumstances, legitimate security reasons to uncover the source of Internet communications. The most common justification for tracebacks is to counter distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks.

Correct.  And there are ways of doing this now.

But implementation details are important, and governments participating in the process — organized by the International Telecommunication Union, a U.N. agency — may have their own agendas. A document submitted by China this spring and obtained by CNET News said the “IP traceback mechanism is required to be adapted to various network environments, such as different addressing (IPv4 and IPv6), different access methods (wire and wireless) and different access technologies (ADSL, cable, Ethernet) and etc.” It adds: “To ensure traceability, essential information of the originator should be logged.”

This essentially means that anything anyone says that might counter the current administration in a country is subject to be “detained” and “questioned” for their unloyal behavior.  Really, China is helping this sort of thing along.  You won’t be able to hide behind Tor or any other kind of proxy or anonymizer.

By itself, of course, the U.N. has no power to impose Internet standards on anyone. But U.N. and ITU officials have been lobbying for more influence over the way the Internet is managed, most prominently through the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia and a followup series of meetings.

No one really knows what is going to happen.  The proposal isn’t due to be finished until 2009, the UN doesn’t really have any power to implement this by itself, and not everyone in the group is in favor of it.

“When NSA takes the lead on standard-setting, you have to ask yourself how much is about security and how much is about surveillance,” said the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Rotenberg. “You would think (the ITU) would be a little more sensitive to spying on Internet users with the cooperation of the NSA and the Chinese government.”

Yes, a normal person would think this way.  These guys that want this, I’m not so sure about it.

What I hate about this proposal is that I am allowed, by law, to look at whatever I want online (except kiddie porn, but those bastards…well, that’s for another time).  They want to change this so that even innocent people are tracked.  I want the law to stay as it is.  If I want to go read some nutjob religious wackos‘ site, I can.  If I want to read about why George Bush might be the anti-christ, I can.  If I want to look at tubgirl, goatse (not that I would.  Once of each was enough to burn the images forever in my brain.) or any other shock site, I can.  If I want to surf porn (gay, straight, or farm) I can.   This is my legal right.  No government should be able to tell me that I can’t look at any site online for any reason.  I should not have to fear that I will have a file with said government, which could get me into trouble.  This could range from lack of employment opportunities to being denied the ability to fly around the world.

Stick this proposal where the sun doesn’t shine and stop thinking we like be treated like children.

In the small print on this bag of grapes, there is a EULA that reads:

The recipient of the produce contained in this package agrees not to propagate or reproduce any portion of the produce, including (but not limited to) seeds, stems, tissue and fruit.

Ironically, these are seedless grapes.  I guess they can still reproduce even without seeds, in which case I worry what the hell it really is that I’m eating.

Original, much larger photo on flickr.

Tap’dNY is selling purified New York City tap water.  Their slogan is “not from the top of some far away mountain.”

From their manifesto [pdf]

Year after year, bottled water companies have told us that their water was somehow healthier or better for us than our own water. They spent billions of dollars on marketing to make us believe that we needed exotic water, in sleek packaging, from far away Arctic glaciers, tropical islands, and European volcanoes.

We fell for the fancy marketing gimmicks, too, and the brands we drank started to become status symbols.

But we’re New Yorkers and are ready for an honest change.  It’s time for a better way of thinking, er, drinking:  A Tap’dNY Manifesto for the new age.

New York City already has the best pizza in the world.  Now, with purified NYC tap water, you can eat more pizza since you’ll be drinking water instead of soda.  Just remember, NYC tap water comes from upstate, so, technically, New York State has the best water.

The security theater at the airport is annoying, unnecessary, and, quit frankly, stupid. Just because you have checked my shoes, my laptop, and felt me up through “special” screenings, doesn’t mean that I’m not a threat. There are numerous ways to become dangerous after passing through security and getting onto your plane.

1. Shoelaces can easily strangle people.
2. Glasses and/or sunglasses can be worked with a plastic knife from dinner to create a nice little shiv.
3. Mess around with your laptop. There’s lots of sharp edges you can also create shivs with.
4. Gouge out people’s eyes with a plastic spoon.
5. Use any ball point pen. Snap it in half. You now have a pointy bit that you can cause some damage with.
6. Force people to eat the airline food (except Emirates. Their food kicks ass and they give me real silverware, just in case I want to be an adult while eating).
7. Sharpen the end of your toothbrush into a shiv.
8. Use the plastic and/or metal clips on your carry-on or laptop bag to create a shiv.
9. Bring a portable DVD player. Take DVD out of DVD player. Break DVD in two. You now have a sharp cutting instrument to use as you please. I’d use it to cut my food because sometimes the airline doesn’t have knives.
10. A sturdy necklace can be used for strangling as well.
11. Break your seatback tray table. Whack people over the head with it.
12. Get a hold of the plane’s defibrillator. Watch the hilarity ensue. A word of caution. You’ll likely only have one shot at this before other passengers kick the shit out of you.
13. Unscrew anything on the plane with a coin. Use screw to poke out people’s eyes.

While I do not advocate actually trying anything written above, I have thought about it in the sense that security cannot overcome ingenuity and if someone really wants to wreck havoc, they will. Personally, I’d prefer to get to my destination on time and would be happy, instead, if all the terrorists would pick someplace else, oh say, Washington, DC and some of the big white buildings there, if they want to cause damage.