| |
|
Friday, March 16, 2007
|
|
Internet censorship is spreading rapidly, being practised by about two
dozen countries and applied to a far wider range of online information
and applications, according to research by a transatlantic group of
academics.
The warning comes a week after a Turkish court ordered the blocking
of YouTube to silence offensive comments about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
the founder of modern Turkey, marking the most visible attack yet on a
website that has been widely adopted around the world. A recent
six-month investigation into whether 40 countries use censorship shows
the practice is spreading, with new countries learning from experienced
practitioners such as China and benefiting from technological
improvements. OpenNet Initiative, a project by Harvard Law School
and the universities of Toronto, Cambridge and Oxford, repeatedly tried
to call up specific websites from 1,000 international news and other
sites in the countries concerned, and a selection of local-language
sites.
The research found a trend towards censorship or, as John
Palfrey, executive director of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for
Internet and Society, said, "a big trend in the reverse direction",
with many countries recently starting to adopt forms of online
censorship. Ronald Deibert, associate professor of political
science at the University of Toronto, said 10 countries had become
"pervasive blockers", regularly preventing their citizens seeing a
range of online material. These included China, Iran, Saudi Arabia,
Tunisia, Burma and Uzbekistan. New censorship techniques include
the periodic barring of complete applications, such as China's block on
Wikipedia or Pakistan's ban on Google's blogging service, and the use
of more advanced technologies such as "keyword filtering", which is
used to track down material by identifying sensitive words. Methods
such as these are being copied as countries new to censorship learn
from those with more experience. "There's a growing awareness of best
practice - or rather, worst practice," Mr Deibert said.
3:14:16 PM 
|
|
Web Censorship on the Increase.
mid-devonian writes "Close on the heels of the temporary blocking of YouTube by a Turkish judge, a group of academics has published research showing that Web censorship is on the increase
worldwide. As many as two dozen countries are blocking content using a
variety of techniques. Distressingly, the most censor-heavy countries
(which includes China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Burma and
Uzbekistan) seem to be passing on their technologically sophisticated
techniques to other areas of the world. 'New censorship techniques
include the periodic barring of complete applications, such as China's
block on Wikipedia or Pakistan's ban on Google's blogging service, and
the use of more advanced technologies such as 'keyword filtering',
which is used to track down material by identifying sensitive words.'" [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]
3:10:15 PM
|
|
Here is the transcript of the March 7th hearing in SCO v IBM,
the last of the summary judgment hearings transcripts. Thanks yet again
to Chris Brown for arranging to obtain the transcripts.
On this day, Kimball was quite busy. He heard several motions, all the ones left over from the first two hearings on March 1 and March 5: - IBM's Motion for Summary Judgment on its Claim for Declaratory Judgment of Non-Infringement (Tenth Counterclaim) (PDF) -- asking for a judgment that the Linux kernel does not infringe copyrights owned by SCO
- IBM's Motion for Summary Judgment on its Claim of Copyright
Infringment (Eighth Counterclaim) -- IBM's counterclaim regarding SCO's
violation of the GPL and consequent copyright infringment -- (PDF)
- SCO's cross motion in which it tries to say it never violated the GPL (if you spin the wording their way) (PDF) and
-
SCO's motion for Summary Judgment on IBM's Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Counterclaims (PDF) -- SCO's motion trying to get SCO off the hook for all the trash talk in the media.
On this day, we learn from IBM's attorney, David Marriott that the
"mountain of code" SCO's CEO Darl McBride told the world about from
2003 onward ends up being a measly 326 lines of noncopyrightable code
that IBM didn't put in Linux anyway. On the other hand, SCO has infringed all 700,000 lines of IBM's GPL'd code in the Linux kernel.
SCO's GPL defense is of the lip-curling variety and quite funny. And
it's also quite amusing to watch SCO try to wriggle out of
responsibility for all the trash talk its executives treated us to in
its PR campaign.
2:55:03 PM
|
|
CDT Applauds House Passage of Open Government Bill. The House on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to approve legislation that strengthens the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). CDT applauded the House vote and in a letter Tuesday thanked the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for its leadership on the measure. H.R. 1309 -- sponsored by Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) and Rep. Todd Platts (R-Pa.) -- makes improvements to FOIA that have been long sought by the open government community. [Center for Democracy and Technology]
2:48:11 PM
|
|
PATRIOT Act Apologist Site Didn't Get the Memo. Last week, the Department of Justice Inspector General's office released a damning report documenting the FBI abusing its powers under the PATRIOT Act and violating the law to collect Americans' telephone, Internet, financial, credit, and other personal records about Americans without judicial approval.
It appears that not everyone at the DOJ got the memo. The DOJ's Life and Liberty website, a site dedicated to defending the honor of the PATRIOT Act during the re-authorization process last spring, still reads as if nothing has changed. Particularly in the light of the newly revealed truth, many of the quotes now seem (at best) naive.
Under the headline of "Examining the Facts", the DOJ asserts that PATRIOT has "four-year track record with no verified civil liberties abuses." The site quotes an op-ed by former House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner:
Zero. That's the number of substantiated USA PATRIOT Act civil liberties violations. Extensive congressional oversight found no violations. Six reports by the Justice Department's independent Inspector General, who is required to solicit and investigate any allegations of abuse, found no violations.
Wow, that sure sounds good. Unfortunately, the new report reveals that is is simply not true: the inspector general identifies dozens of instances in which extra-judicial demands for personal information -- known as National Security Letters -- may have violated laws and agency regulations.
In the Archive section, the site includes quotes from an op-ed by Senator Pat Roberts responding to critics like ourselves:
I regret to say it, but the rhetoric of those opposed to permanently authorizing the act has no substance and borders on paranoia. Opponents have criticized the act for years but can cite only hypothetical abuses. Facts are stubborn things. The actual record is quite clear - there have been no substantiated allegations of abuse of Patriot Act authorities, period.
Critics could only point to hypothetical abuses because the fox was guarding the hen house. Senator Roberts also opined that:
Through aggressive congressional oversight, we know the FBI uses Patriot Act authorities within the law.
It's now clearer than ever that the oversight was not aggressive enough, with the report documenting that the FBI decieved Congress about its use of the letters. The report is likely only the tip of the iceberg. Immediate and thorough oversight hearings are necessary to uncover the truth and hold the Administration accountable.
Tell Congress to defend your privacy now. [EFF: Deep Links]
2:45:28 PM
|
|
RIAA to Universities: Help Us Threaten Your Students. Not content with wasting universities' resources via their usual tactics--i.e., flooding them with machine-generated complaints about file sharing--the major record labels are now demanding that universities help them shake down students.
The RIAA has asked universities and colleges to forward "pre-lawsuit" letters to alleged filesharers that promise a "discounted" settlement price if the student agrees to pay up immediately. Forwarding the letters saves the RIAA the trouble and expense of filing a lawsuit to obtain students' contact information--a savings that may be redirected to more lawsuits.
To add insult to injury, the letters advise students to contact the RIAA if they have any questions. It's safe to say that the RIAA is unlikely to give students the full picture. For example, will the RIAA tell students that parents are generally not liable for infringements committed by their kids, or that the record labels sometimes sue the wrong people? Probably not.
We think students should seek out less biased sources of information--and their institutions should assist in that process. Toward that end, we've put together a short FAQ to help students learn more about their options; we hope colleges and universities that forward the RIAA's threat letter will take the additional step of directing students to this FAQ as well as other neutral information sources.
Of course, the RIAA should not be putting universities in this perverse position in the first place. If you'd like to help academic institutions get back to their real mission--educating students, not helping to threaten them--Take action now to help stop the lawsuit campaign. [EFF: Deep Links]
2:43:13 PM
|
|
|
© Copyright 2007 Paul Hardwick.
Last update: 3/18/07; 10:24:57 PM.
|
|
|
