[Quote:]

MSFT: Our DRM licensing is there to eliminate hobbyists and little guys

A Microsoft spokesman has described their DRM licensing scheme as a system for reducing the number of device vendors to a manageable number, so that the company doesn’t have to oversee too many developers.

Yesterday, I spoke at a DRM conference in London. Just before me was the opening keynote, from Microsoft’s Amir Majidimehr, Corporate VP of the Windows Digital Media Division, which oversees licensing and deployment of Microsoft’s DRM.

Amir’s presentation kept referring to Microsoft DRM as “open,” which was curious, because it’s actually the opposite of open. An open platform is something like an electrical outlet: if you want to design something to plug into an electrical outlet, you can — you might have to satisfy a regulator that it won’t burst into flames, but you certainly don’t need to talk to General Electric or any other potential competitor.

Microsoft’s DRM requires that device makers pay Microsoft a license fee for each device that plays back video encoded with its system. it also requires every such vendor to submit to a standardized, non-negotiable license agreement that spells out how the player must be implemented. This contract contains numerous items that limit the sort of business you’re allowed to pursue, notably that you may not implement a Microsoft player in open source software.

The bombshell was Amir’s explanation of the reason that his employer charges fees to license its DRM. According to Amir, the fee is not intended to recoup the expenses Microsoft incurred in developing their DRM, or to turn a profit. The intention is to reduce the number of licensors to a manageable level, to lock out “hobbyists” and other entities that Microsoft doesn’t want to have to trouble itself with.

I was pretty surprised to hear an executive from Microsoft describe his company’s strategy as intentionally anti-competitive and intended solely to freeze out certain classes of operators rather than maximizing its profits through producing a better product and charging a fair price for it.

Isn’t that why the Justice Department and the EU went after Redmond in the first place?

Link

[Quote:]

StarForce threatens to sue me for criticizing its products

A company that was criticized on Boing Boing has threatened to sue me, and claims to have sworn out a complaint against me with the FBI.

Yesterday, I posted about StarForce, a harmful technology used by game companies to restrict their customers’ freedom. StarForce attempts to stop game customers from copying their property, but it has the side-effects of destabilizing and crashing the computers on which it is installed.

Someone identifying himself as “Dennis Zhidkov, PR-manager, StarForce Inc.” contacted me this morning and threatened to sue me, and told me that he had contacted the FBI to complain about my “harassment.”

If you’re looking for reasons to boycott StarForce-crippled games (besides the obvious ones), you might add their use of bullying legal threats to your list.

From: “Dennis Zhidkov” <denis.zhidkov@star-force.com>

Date: January 31, 2006 9:55:40 AM BST
To: “doctorow@craphound.com” <doctorow@craphound.com>
Subject: StarForce Response to Cory Doctorow

StarForce Inc. response to Mr. Cory Doctorow

Dear Sir, calling StarForce “Anti-copying malware” is a good enough cause to press charges and that is what our corporate lawyer is busy doing right now.
I urge you to remove your post from http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/30/anticopying_malware_.html because it is full of insults, lies, false accusations and rumors. Your article violates approximately 11 international laws. Our USlawyer will contact you shortly. I have also contacted the FBI , because what you are doing is harassment.

Sincerely,
Dennis Zhidkov
PR-manager

StarForce Inc.
www.star-force.com

Here’s my reply: “Thank you for your response. I have appended it to my original post and have forwarded it to the Chilling Effects project to be part of the permanent record of abusive attempts by companies to silence their critics.”

Link

This is the original post:

[Quote:]

A group of gamers has started a site to spread a pledge to boycott video-games that come with a dangerous anti-copying mechanism.

Starforce is an anti-copying program that some games covertly install when you install the game. The software causes system instability and crashes. The company that makes Starforce refuses to address the damage their software causes; instead, they blame the people on whom their malware has been forced: “According to our research those of users [sic] that do run into compatibility problems are beginner-level-hackers that try to go around our protection system.”

The list of games infected with Starforce is long and depressing — there are dozens of these. If you’re a gamer, you owe it to yourself to have a look and check to see if Starforce might have damaged your PC. What’s more, you should join the boycott of any game that comes with this malicious software onboard.

For example, here’s one of the common problems brought by Starforce: under Windows XP, if packets are lost during the reading or writing of a disk, XP interprets this as an error and steps the IDE speed down. Eventually it will revert to 16bit compatibility mode rendering a CD/DVD writer virtually unusable. In some circumstances certain drives cannot cope with this mode and it results in physical hardware failure (Most commonly in multiformat CD/DVD writer drives). A sure sign of this step down occurring is that the burn speeds will get slower and slower (no matter what speed you select to burn at). Starforce, on a regular basis, triggers this silent step down. Until it reaches the latter stages most people do not even realise it is happening.

Moreover, the Starforce drivers, installed on your system, grant ring 0 (system level) privileges to any code under the ring 3 (user level) privileges. Thus, any virus or trojan can get OS privileges and totally control your system. Since Windows 2000, the Windows line security and stability got enhanced by separating those privileges, but with the Starforce drivers, the old system holes and instabilities are back and any program (or virus) can reach the core of your system by using the Starforce drivers as a backdoor.

Link

If the only way they can keep their customers by threatening everybody who has something to say about their software, it’s clear that the starforce software must be utter crap. It’s interesting to see that the research confirms this.

Oh, and as far as I know, Sony is still a customer at starfuckersforce.

If you hate folding your t-shirts after doing your laundry, check this.

[Quote:]

Before the football match between Argentina and Brazil, an Argentinean condom company came up with this ad to show the Brazilians what they were going to do to them.

Brazil won the match and their Football organization replied to the ad.

full article:

Compare:

search for tiananmen square on images.google.cn, and search for tiananmen square on images.google.com.

They’re clearly filtering for keywords, as the search for tank square massacre shows.

[Quote:]

As part of the What The World Thinks of America programme, 11,000 people in the UK, France, Russia, Indonesia, South Korea, Jordan, Australia, Canada, Israel, Brazil and the US responded to a poll asking their views and opinions on America.

The respondents were asked about their general attitudes towards America and US President George Bush.

The poll also posed a range of other questions on America’s foreign policy, military power, cultural influences and economic might.

The White House sided with the terrorists in the UN.

A man takes a shower at a frozen hot mineral spring in the Black Sea town of Varna, some 280 miles north-east of the capital Sofia. The arctic cold wave dropped temperatures to 20 below Centigrade (4 below Fahrenheit) in north-east Bulgaria

[Quote:]

Ever since her rise to fame on the international party circuit, the debate has raged in the gossip columns from Los Angeles to London. Is the heiress Paris Hilton really the most air-headed socialite the world has ever seen? Or, as her supporters claim, is her dizzy bimbo act so outrageous that it can only be a deliberate, if off-beat, self-marketing ploy?

Now, it seems, a leaked transcript of a legal statement she made in private may have proved the prosecution case beyond doubt. Her responses to a series of lawyers’ questions reveal that the heir to the Hilton Hotel fortune admits not knowing some of her friends’ names, thinks that everyone in Europe speaks French, and believes that London is not in the United Kingdom.

[Quote:]

Dutch TV programme Nieuwslicht (Newslight) is claiming that the security of the Dutch biometric passport has already been cracked. As the programme reports here, the passport was read remotely and then the security cracked using flaws built into the system, whereupon all of the biometric data could be read.

The crack is attributed to Delft smartcard security specialist Riscure, which here explains that an attack can be executed from around 10 metres and the security broken, revealing date of birth, facial image and fingerprint, in around two hours. Riscure notes that that the speed of the crack is aided by the Dutch passport numbering scheme being sequential.

The process is explained in greater detail by Bart Jacobs, Research Director of the Institute for Computing and Information Sciences, University of Nijmegen, in presentations to be found here. These make it clear that a skimming exercise could potentially yield all biometric data from a passport (or indeed a biometric ID card), giving ID thieves and would-be forgers a considerable leg up in the construction of fakes.

According to the Dutch Interior Ministry ways to improve the security of the passport are being looked at. But note that they say “improve”, not “fix”.

[Quote:]

Highly analytical couples, such as scientists, may be more likely to produce children with autism, an expert has argued.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, of the University of Cambridge, said the phenomenon may help explain the recent rise in diagnoses.

He believes the genes which make some analytical may also impair their social and communication skills.

A weakness in these areas is the key characteristic of autism.

It is thought that around one child in every 100 has a form of autism – the vast majority of those affected are boys.

This is just more proof that I should pick a Hot dumb Cheerleader type for a wife. Honestly, it is for the kid’s benefit.

[Quote:]

According to surveys, most of the people in the world say that religion is very important in their lives. Many would say that without it, their lives would be meaningless. It’s tempting just to take them at their word, to declare that nothing more is to be said — and to tiptoe away. Who would want to interfere with whatever it is that gives their lives meaning? But if we do that, we willfully ignore some serious questions. Can just any religion give lives meaning, in a way that we should honor and respect? What about people who fall into the clutches of cult leaders, or who are duped into giving their life savings to religious con artists? Do their lives still have meaning, even though their particular “religion” is a fraud?

[..]

So we’ve got ourselves caught in a hypocrisy trap, and there is no clear path out. Are we like the families in which the adults go through all the motions of believing in Santa Claus for the sake of the kids, and the kids all pretend still to believe in Santa Claus so as not to spoil the adults’ fun? If only our current predicament were as innocuous and even comical as that! In the adult world of religion, people are dying and killing, with the moderates cowed into silence by the intransigence of the radicals in their own faiths, and many adherents afraid to acknowledge what they actually believe for fear of breaking Granny’s heart, or offending their neighbors to the point of getting run out of town, or worse.

If that is the precious meaning our lives are vouchsafed thanks to our allegiance to one religion or another, it is not such a bargain. Is that the best we can do? Is it not tragic that so many people around the world find themselves enlisted against their will in a conspiracy of silence?

Russian photographs 1917-1945
A collection of photographs from the Howard Schickler Gallery,including the Battle of Stalingrad.

[Quote:]

The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of “leveraging” their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show.

In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the family’s door telling him “to come get his wife.”

[the Geneva Conventions:]

Article 3

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) Taking of hostages;

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

[American domestic law:]

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 118 > § 2441

§ 2441. War crimes

(a)
Offense.—
Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

(b)
Circumstances.—

The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).

(c)
Definition.—
As used in this section the term “war crime�? means any conduct—

(1)
defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;

(2)

prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 October 1907;

(3)
which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with non-international armed conflict;

[Quote:]

For more than a decade, Osama bin Laden had few soldiers more devoted than Abdallah Tabarak. A former Moroccan transit worker, Tabarak served as a bodyguard for the al Qaeda leader, worked on his farm in Sudan and helped run a gemstone smuggling racket in Afghanistan, court records here show.

During the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, when al Qaeda leaders were pinned down by U.S. forces, Tabarak sacrificed himself to engineer their escape. He headed toward the Pakistani border while making calls on Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone as bin Laden and the others fled in the other direction.

Tabarak was captured and taken to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was classified as such a high-value prisoner that the Pentagon repeatedly denied requests by the International Committee of the Red Cross to see him. Then, after spending almost three years at the base, he was suddenly released.

Today, the al Qaeda loyalist known locally as the “emir” of Guantanamo walks the streets of his old neighborhood near Casablanca, more or less a free man. In a decision that neither the Pentagon nor Moroccan officials will explain publicly, Tabarak was transferred to Morocco in August 2004 and released from police custody four months later.

A woman who indentified herself only as Sethunya, has blood drawn for an HIV test, at the Princess Marina Hospital in Gaberone, Botswana, Sept. 14, 2000.

[Quote:]

When Botswana first offered free AIDS treatment, health authorities in one of the world’s most infected countries braced for a rush of patients. It did not happen.

It turned out that most people were so afraid of the deadly disease, and the frequent social ostracism, that they did not want to know if they were infected.

That reluctance to seek help in one of the few African nations able to provide it prompted a radical rethinking of how testing is done here. Now, HIV tests are offered as a part of any medical visit.

In most places, patients are left to ask for a test themselves, then put through extensive counseling to prepare them in case HIV infection is found. But despite decades of education campaigns, the World Health Organization estimates less than 10 percent of infected people in the African countries at the epicenter of the AIDS pandemic realize they have the virus.

[..]

Doctors here believe pulling patients aside for special counseling is intimidating and helps fuel the stigma that keeps patients from seeking help.

“In fact, we found that people who had not made their minds up quite often were definitely against it once the pretest counseling was done,” said Dr. Howard Moffat, medical superintendent at Princess Marina Hospital in the capital, Gaborone.

“I think the medical profession itself … played a major role in creating this fear of AIDS and this quite irrational reluctance to be tested.”

Since the beginning of 2004, Botswana has treated HIV tests like any other medical procedure. Patients have the option to refuse, but doctors say most don’t. They estimate up to 35 percent of the country’s 1.7 million people now know their status.

While Botswana is worried about “how do we help the patients”, the USA is worried about “who gets the money”:

[Quote:]

President Bush’s $15 billion effort to fight AIDS has handed out nearly one-quarter of its grants to religious groups, and officials are aggressively pursuing new church partners that often emphasize disease prevention through abstinence and fidelity over condom use.

Award recipients include a Christian relief organization famous for its televised appeals to feed hungry children, a well-known Catholic charity and a group run by the son of evangelist Billy Graham, according to the State Department.

The outreach to nontraditional AIDS players comes in the midst of a debate over how best to prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The debate has activated groups on both ends of the political spectrum and created a vast competition for money.

[Quote:]

For a decade we’ve been told that our kids, just as they seem to be getting taller with each generation, are also getting brighter. Every year new waves of children get better GCSE, A-level and degree results than their predecessors. Meanwhile, in primary schools, the standards in national maths and English tests at 11 head in one direction — relentlessly upwards.

Last week came the bombshell that blew a gaping hole in this one-way escalator of achievement.

Big version here.

Story here…

[Quote:]

We leven tegenwoordig onder het preventieparadigma. De gedachte dat iets of iemand in de toekomst mogelijkerwijs een terreurdaad kan uitvoeren, volstaat om nu al drastische tegenmaatregelen te nemen. Je kunt de gebeurtenissen immers niet afwachten, dan ben je simpelweg te laat. Je moet pro-actief en preventief optreden, alleen dan kun je terreur in de kiem smoren en voorkomen. Je kunt niet langer wachten tot je bewijzen in handen hebt. Je moet patronen zien en leren herkennen. Je moet mensen monitoren en afwijkingen in hun gedrag vastleggen. Je moet kunnen terugkijken in gegevens en tevens vooruit kunnen kijken. Je moet de misdaad – de terreur –vóór zijn. Veiligheid voor alles!

We nemen derhalve maatregelen die in elk ander tijdsbestek als draconisch zouden worden bestempeld, en ze volgen elkaar in rap tempo op. We hebben preventieve fouillering mogelijk gemaakt (2003). We hebben overal camerabewaking. We hebben de algemene legitimatieplicht ingevoerd (januari 2005). We hebben de drempel fors verlaagd om persoonlijke gegevens op te vragen bij banken, supermarkten, verzekeringen, bibliotheken, verenigingen, telefoonmaatschappijen en internetproviders – dat mag nu elke agent doen, zonder bevel van de rechter (wet Vorderen Gegevens, juli 2005). We hebben in Europees verband de bewaarplicht geaccepteerd, waardoor de zogeheten verkeersgegevens van alle telecommunicatie van alle burgers moeten worden vastgelegd en bewaard: wanneer en met wie iedereen mailt, sms’t of chat met wie, benevens de lengte van een sms of mail (december 2005).

[..]

Misschien moeten we overheden beter op hun beloften vastpinnen, zoals Simon Hania, technisch directeur van XS4ALL, al eens suggereerde. ‘U bewaart al onze data uit het oogpunt van terrorismebestrijding. Soit. Maar dan eisen wij ook dat er geen enkele aanslag meer plaatsvindt. Oh, er was er wel een? Dan doet u uw werk niet goed. Wegwezen. Nu.‘

Een column die ik eigenlijk in z’n geheel zou moeten citeren.

dank je, Peter

[Quote:]

Project Censored specializes in covering the top news stories which were either ignored or downplayed by the mainstream media each year. Project Censored is a research team composed of nearly 200 university faculty, students, and community experts who review about 1,000 news story submissions for coverage, content, reliability of sources, and national significance. The top 25 stories selected are submitted to a panel of judges who then rank them in order of importance. The results are published each year in an excellent book available for purchase at their website, amazon.com, and most major book stores.

A brief summary of last year’s top 10 censored news stories provided below proves quite revealing and most informative. The headline of each news story contains a link for those who want to read the entire article. Links to sources are also provided for verification. Thanks to the Internet and wonderful, committed groups like Project Censored, the news is getting out to those who want to know. By revealing these censored news stories, we can stop the excessive secrecy and work together to build a brighter future. Please help to spread the word, and have a great day!

[Quote:]

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. “They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public,” he said.

A spokesperson for NASA said “that government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen.”

If you follow through on that, you’ll get:

* Dear patient: You have lung cancer. I’m not at liberty to discuss if we should do anything about it.
* If you drive your car over the cliff you will die. I have no opinion on whether or not you should drive your car over the cliff.

Heaven forbid we let experts make policy!

[Quote:]

Today Santorum said this to the Pittsburg Post-Gazette: 
 ”I had absolutely nothing to do–never met, never talked, never coordinated, never did anything — with Grover Norquist and the — quote — K Street Project.” 

Video-WMP Video-QT

The video was shot 6/28/05 of Grover Norquist introducing Rick Santorum at a press conference.  As Santorum says in the video:

Santorum: “Thank you Grover, and I appreciate your help and support on this and many other issues…”

[Quote:]

IN MEMORIAM

“The future is not free: the story

of all human progress is one of a struggle against all odds. We

learned again that this America, which Abraham Lincoln called the

last, best hope of man on Earth, was built on heroism and noble

sacrifice. It was built by men and women like our seven star

voyagers, who answered a call beyond duty, who gave more than was

expected or required and who gave it little thought of worldly

reward.”

- President Ronald Reagan

January 31, 1986

Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, Cornell, JPL, NASA

How did this unusual Martian rock form?

The atypical two-toned rock, visible in the lower right of the above image, was photographed a few days ago by the robotic Spirit rover currently rolling across Mars. For now, the environmental processes that created the rock remain a matter of speculation. Finding unusual rocks is not unusual for Spirit or its twin rover Opportunity, however. Over the past two years, for example, the rovers have unexpectedly discovered very small gray pebbles dubbed blueberries, and a rock out in the middle of nowhere now thought to be a meteorite. Having investigated alien terrain and having found clear evidence that part of Mars had a wet past, the Earth-launched Martian rovers are now entering their third spectacular year exploring the red planet.