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A security expert who audited the Japanese National ID Card system and found it to be terribly designed and implemented was prevented from presenting his findings at a technology conference after the Japanese government intervened and threatened the conference organizers.

The Japanese government gave me two options.

1) Do not talk
2) Drastically change your slides to say what they want me to.

When I offered to not use slides at all and give my own opinion they told me that I would not be permitted to speak AT ALL. It is obvious to me that they did not have an issue with my slides or presentation. They were afraid that I would draw attention to problems in JUKI net. Soumushou thinks that they can hide from the issues. They think that if they keep people from speaking about the issues, it will go away. I thought I would be immune from such Japanese government pressures however I underestimated Soumushou’s ability to manipulate those around me.

Link

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TAP Gel Coat, Marine Grade Epoxy System-102, D-Cloth, SurfBoard Resin, Quik-Cast, and glazing putty are among the products used to make these accurately detailed duck castings.

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Tech advocacy group Downhill Battle launched two websites today

The first site — www.kidssmellbullshit.com features a contest for kids to write a letter or submit a photo about the issue, which will then be sent to [The Business Software Alliance] and [The Motion Picture Association of America]. The winner will receive an iPod Mini. The second site – www.copyrightcurriculum.com – is a collaborative effort to write a public-interest curriculum for teachers that want to address these issues in their classrooms.

The move was to counter private sector and lobbying groups’ partisan educational tools that are being forced into public schools. Teachers across the country who use the Weekly Reader in their classroom have been receiving installments of the BSA curriculum in the magazine since September 1st. In addition, the MPAA has hired Junior Achievement to teach a filesharing curriculum that drastically distorts the legal realities of the history of copyright and peer-to-peer filesharing. Kidssmellbullshit.com hosts a letter-writing and mash-up photo contest for school-aged children with the goal of sending a youth-based message to BSA and MPAA about the their thoughts on these new technologies. Other users are allowed to collaboratively edit, filter and mash-up the curriculum materials using the collaborative wiki system.

The second is a slightly more serious page called the Collaborative Copyright and Technology Law Curriculum . This one’s for the grownups in the house who want to do some serious ass-whooping.

Link

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De Volksuniversiteit Aventus in Deventer heeft naaktportretten van de muur verwijderd omdat ze mogelijk aanstootgevend zouden zijn voor allochtone cursisten. De school geeft inburgeringscursussen aan enkele honderden nieuwkomers.

De foto’s zijn gemaakt door cursisten van de avondopleiding, zegt locatiemanager T. Schipper woensdag. “Het ging om een expositie van 25 foto’s waaronder enkele naaktportretten. De docenten van de inburgeringscursussen gaven meteen aan dat voor enkele cursisten de afbeeldingen aanstootgevend konden zijn.”

Volgens de locatiemanager zijn de foto’s niet pornografisch maar draagt het zonder inleiding confronteren van de cursisten met de afbeeldingen niet bij aan de sfeer die op de school heerst. De docent van de cursisten heeft ook de rest van de expositie verwijderd en vervangen door protestbrieven.

Goh, dat is Christenen al tientallen jaren niet gelukt. Alleen hoe dit bijdraagt aan integratie ontgaat me volledig.

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When it debuted in 1999, TiVo revolutionized the TV experience by wresting control of screen time from advertisers, allowing viewers to record shows and skip commercials. TiVo’s slogan said it all: “TV your way.”

Behind the scenes, though, TiVo was courting advertisers, selling inroads to a universe most customers saw as commercial-free. The result is a groundbreaking new business strategy, developed with more than 30 of the nation’s largest advertisers, that in key ways circumvents the very technology that made TiVo famous.

By March, TiVo viewers will see “billboards,” or small logos, popping up over TV commercials as they fast-forward through them, offering contest entries, giveaways or links to other ads. If a viewer “opts in” to the ad, their contact information will be downloaded to that advertiser — exclusively and by permission only — so even more direct marketing can take place.

By late 2005, TiVo expects to roll out “couch commerce,” a system that enables viewers to purchase products and participate in surveys using their remote controls.

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The God-fearing patriotic folks at the Free Republic have come to the defense of the heroic Marine who executed the wounded, defenseless man in a Fallujah house of worship. They’ve identified the real criminal in the affair, the reporter, Kevin Sites.

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What we share – an unfailing belief in democracy – has to be deeper than any present disagreement.

This is all very fine and very eloquent. The trouble is that it is quite wrong. Europe (particularly in the incarnation of Mr Chirac) does not have a deep commitment to democracy, at least not in the sense that the English-speaking tradition understands it.

The American Constitution may have borrowed much of its frame of reference from French revolutionary ideals, but the historical outcomes parted company pretty quickly. The United States ended up with a federalised system and an iron-clad Bill of Rights while France was descending into the Terror. We do not have a shared reverence for the robustness of democratic institutions because, in continental Europe, democratic institutions have been anything but robust.

That is why the EU is busily moving away from the idea of government being directly and transparently responsive to the popular will.

The monstrous global crimes of the 20th century – the collective guilt which is still the motor force of European political consciousness – were all thought to have been generated (or at least condoned) by popular will.

The political instincts of the people are far too inflammable and mercurial to be trusted. Better leave the serious business of law-making and governance to a professional class of administrators, an enlightened elite who will not be subject to the whims and volatile passions of the mob whose vicissitudes have brought such disgrace on our countries.

Public opinion manipulated by national political leaders has to take the rap for the hideous events of the two world wars and the Cold War that followed them, and so they will all be cut down to size. Democracy is all well and good in its place but the power of the people must be sieved, regulated and heavily supervised if it is to come to the right conclusions.

It may sound apocalyptic, but I do believe that the democratic experiment in continental Europe, begun just over 200 years or so ago, is coming to a close.

The European Union is creating what it hopes will be a benign oligarchy. Real political power will reside once again within elite circles (as it does already in France) which will conduct their business in the corridors rather than in the assemblies.

Meanwhile, the United States will persevere with the belief, which Europe regards as crass, that giving ordinary people power over their governing class is the only hope for peace and security. Democracy, and what it entails, is not what unites us, Mr Blair. It is what divides us.

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Education about copyright and “digital piracy” has arrived quietly in UK schools, under the banner of, would you believe it, The Guardian. Yesterday’s issue of Education Guardian carried a feature on the subject tied into The Guardian’s subscription-based schools resources operation, Learnpremium, which is offering curriculum activities on the subject of “digital piracy” to schools.

There is no direct music industry influence obvious in the class exercises offered, but their overall tone would not altogether displease the music industry. Two basic scenarios are presented, one along the lines of ‘it’s a victimless crime’, while the second is a somewhat more fevered report of the damage caused by piracy. As the print copy says: “Although piracy is commonly seen as a victimless crime, its effects are far-reaching” and “Set up a class debate between ‘downloaders’ and ‘industry representatives’”. No room for Lawrence Lessiges or miscellaneous copyright law visionaries there, then.

[..]

The students are then invited to form groups and choose one of three activities: “Design an anti piracy poster aimed at teenagers; Design the storyboard for an anti piracy cinema advertisement; Design a full page anti-piracy advertisement for a teenage magazine”. Welcome to English lessons in Blair’s Britain, folks – learn how to be a marketing droid. There is, we accept, a counter-exercise of sorts available. Here, it’s suggested that students: “Write a letter to a Hollywood studio, such as 20th Century Fox, and suggest some ways they could improve their provision of films to the public and cut down on piracy at the same time.” The options suggested here are DVDs on demand over the Internet, cheaper DVDs, and simultaneous release of DVDs around the world. Writing to the studios and telling them the current regime is finished, and if they don’t start swimming they’ll sink like stones, is not offered as an option, although it is The Register’s preferred option.

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Hunters soon may be able to sit at their computers and blast away at animals on a Texas ranch via the Internet, a prospect that has state wildlife officials up in arms.

The Web site already offers target practice with a .22 caliber rifle and could soon let hunters shoot at deer, antelope and wild pigs, site creator John Underwood said on Tuesday.

Texas officials are not quite sure what to make of Underwood’s Web site, but may tweak existing laws to make sure Internet hunting does not get out of hand.

“This is the first one I’ve seen,” said Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wildlife director Mike Berger. “The current state statutes don’t cover this sort of thing.”

Underwood, an estimator for a San Antonio, Texas auto body shop, has invested $10,000 to build a platform for a rifle and camera that can be remotely aimed on his 330-acre (133-hectare) southwest Texas ranch by anyone on the Internet anywhere in the world.

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An Australian diving club has claimed a world record in the extreme sport of underwater ironing.

Forty-three members of Melbourne’s Bay City Scuba Diving Club ironed in 10 feet of water in Port Phillip Bay.

Club spokesperson Alan Igoe said the 25-minute dive, using cold non-electric irons, also raised £250 for charity.

“We always try to do something to get our members diving after the winter break, but this gained momentum and took off as a chase for a world record,” he said.

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For Vince Carter, yesterday was the day the music died — at least during pregame warm-ups.

The mercurial star with the Toronto Raptors, who has not exactly sprinted out of the starting blocks this season, received more damaging news yesterday when the National Basketball Association determined his portable stereo unit is off limits in warm-ups.

The 27-year-old shooting guard had been listening to music on his trendy iPod on the basketball court during pregame warm-ups, chilling privately with his tunes while practising jump shots with his teammates.

Yesterday, the NBA said Carter’s quest for inner peace through his headphones did not conform to the league guidelines on proper attire on the court. The league has asked him to put the music player away.

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Subsequently to a cabinet meeting, the Polish
government officially declared yesterday evening that “Poland cannot support
the text that was agreed upon by the EU Council on May 18th, 2004″ as a
proposal for a “directive on the patentability of computer-implemented
inventions”. Consequently, the EU Council is unable to formally adopt that
legislative proposal as its common position. Without the support of Poland,
those countries that supported the proposal in May now fall short of a
qualified majority by 16 votes. New voting weights took effect in the EU on
the 1st of this month.

After extensive consultations with organizations of IT professionals and the
Polish Patent Office, the Polish cabinet concluded that the proposal at hand
does not achieve the stated goals of limiting patents on software and
business methods in Europe. The Polish government explained that it would
“definitely” support “unambiguous regulations” but not a directive under
which the functionality of computer programs could be patented. The EU
Commission and various governments of other EU member countries claimed that
the legislative proposal would not allow for the patentability of programs
that run on an average personal computer. However, at a meeting hosted by
the Polish government on the 5th of this month, everyone including
representatives of the Polish Patent Office, SUN, Novell, Hewlett-Packard
and Microsoft, as well as various patent lawyers, confirmed that the present
proposal of the EU Council does make all software potentially patentable.

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Over the past three years, rumors of a new strain of coca have circulated in the Colombian military. The new plant, samples of which are spread out on this table, goes by different names: supercoca, la millonaria. Here in the southern region it’s known as Boliviana negra. The most impressive characteristic is not that it produces more leaves – though it does – but that it is resistant to glyphosate. The herbicide, known by its brand name, Roundup, is the key ingredient in the US-financed, billion-dollar aerial coca fumigation campaign that is a cornerstone of America’s war on drugs.

One possible explanation: The farmers of the region may have used selective breeding to develop a hardier strain of coca. If a plant happened to demonstrate herbicide resistance, it would be more widely cultivated, and clippings would be either sold or, in many cases, given away or even stolen by other farmers. Such a peer-to-peer network could, over time, result in a coca crop that can withstand large-scale aerial spraying campaigns.

But experts in herbicide resistance suspect that there is another, more intriguing possibility: The coca plant may have been genetically modified in a lab. The technology is fairly trivial. In 1996, Monsanto commercialized its patented Roundup Ready soybean – a genetically modified plant impervious to glyphosate. The innovation ushered in an era of hyperefficient soybean production: Farmers were able to spray entire fields, killing all the weeds and leaving behind a thriving soybean crop. The arrival of Roundup Ready coca would have a similar effect – except that in this case, it would be the US doing the weed killing for the drug lords.

[..]

He does have a clear sense of how the new plant is affecting his region. At first, he says, the aerial spraying was successful, but now, with the arrival of Boliviana negra, it’s affecting only those who are growing lawful crops. “The truth is that the fumigation drives us to the one thing that will survive – and that is Boliviana negra,” he says. “Not bananas, not yucca, not maize.”

The Colombian and US governments want farmers to grow legal crops, he explains, and in the past have paid them to eradicate coca. But though American embassy officials insist that the spraying campaign is more than 99 percent accurate, Don Miguel says that almost all the farmers he knows and represents report that legal crops are sprayed as well. He says that his own tree farm was sprayed, pushing him to the edge of bankruptcy. If Boliviana negra will guarantee income for farmers, Don Miguel says, they will grow it and have less incentive to discuss eradication with the government.

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A trade group representing seven major movie studios filed a first wave of lawsuits against individuals they say are offering pirated copies of films using Internet-based peer-to-peer file-sharing programs.

As part of a larger effort to combat piracy, The Motion Picture Association of America also said it would soon make available a computer program that sniffs out movie and music files on a user’s computer as well as any installed file-sharing programs.

Looks like the MPAA invented a working Artificial Intelligence. After all, how else would this program know what jurisdiction it is running in, which files on my disk I ripped myself from CD/DVD’s I own, and how would it know that those p2p programs I’ve got on my disk are not used for distributing torrents to Linux ISO images? And how would it know I didn’t rename my autoexec.bat to terminator.mpg?

Of couse, all this is bullshit – and they admit it in the article – it’s the Fear of the Parents they’re working on:

“Many parents are concerned about what their children have downloaded and where they’ve downloaded it from,�? MPAA president and chief executive Dan Glickman said in a statement.