Friday, September 23, 2005

Guide aims to help bloggers beat censors

Thursday, September 22, 2005 Posted: 1457 GMT (2257 HKT)
story.handbook.ap.jpg
Copies of the handbook are
displayed at the Apple Expo
computer show in Paris.

RELATED

PARIS, France (AP) -- A Paris-based media watchdog has released an ABC guide of tips for bloggers and dissidents to sneak past Internet censors in countries from China to Iran.

Reporters Without Borders' "Handbook for Blogger and Cyber-Dissidents" is partly financed by the French government and includes technical advice on how to remain anonymous online. [...]

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/09/22/blog.handbook.ap/index.html

??!!

This is the same French government that banned and then u-turned the use of cryptography by individuals not so long ago...hmmmm! Now thats what I call a 'u-turn'.

Perhaps in their next u-turn they will promote the production of GSM telephones with real public key encryption so that everyone's calls cant be intercepted and listened to at will, like they are now. This would be another real u-turn because it was the French that developed the crackable / crippleable A5 algorithm that is used in all GSM phones.

Here is a link to the guide.
posted by Irdial , 8:50 AM Þ 
Thursday, September 22, 2005

http://ethicalnetwork.org/essays/supermarkets.php

A huge (and I mean HUGE) three story tall banner covering the entire facade of a house in central london has gone up to promote the above website.

We have one farmers market every saturday morning near us, which we go to...great meat and pastry stalls, vegetable stall with edible flowers and yellow carrots on sale...excellent.
posted by Irdial , 6:04 PM Þ 

2005-07-28 Thursday - Southwark, London

19:10 From my workplace in Southwark, South London, I arrange by text message (SMS) to meet my girlfriend at Hanover Square. To save time – as I suppose – I decide to the take the tube to Bond Street instead of my usual bus. I am wearing greenish Merrell shoes, black trousers, t-shirt, black lightweight Gap jumper, dark grey/black light rainproof Schott jacket and grey Top Shop cap.

I am carrying a black rucksack I use as a workbag.

19:21 I enter Southwark tube station, passing uniformed police officers by the entrance, and more police beyond the gate. I walk down to the platform, peering down to see the steps as, thanks to a small eye infection, I'm wearing specs instead of my usual contact lenses.

The platform is mostly empty. The next train is scheduled to arrive in a few minutes. As other people drift onto the platform, I sit down against the wall with my rucksack still on my back.

I check for messages on my phone, then take out a printout of an article about Wikipedia from inside jacket pocket and begin to read.

The train enters the station.

Police officers, all uniformed men, appear on the platform and surround me. They ask me to take off my rucksack. They must immediately notice my French accent, still strong after living more than 12 years in London. They handcuff me – hands behind my back (the handcuffs have a rigid bar between the two cuffs – i.e. not like the ones often shown on TV). They take my rucksack out of my sight. They explain that this is for my safety, and that they are acting under the authority of the Terrorism Act.

I am told that I am being stopped and searched because they found my behaviour suspicious (from direct observation and then from watching me on the CCTV system):

I went into the station without looking at the police officers at the entrance or by the gates, i.e. I was ‘avoiding them’
two other men entered the station at about the same time as me
I am wearing a jacket ‘too warm for the season’
I am carrying a bulky rucksack
I kept my rucksack with me at all times (I had it on my back)
I looked at people coming on the platform
I played with my mobile phone and then took a paper from inside my jacket.
They empty the content of all my pockets into two of their helmets and search me. They loosen my belt. [...]

This is particularly relevant given the EU's new plans on cross-border
sharing of police databases:
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.19/dataprotection

The weather was too cold for the season

So, basically the Police have decided that wearing a rain jacket,
carrying a rucksack with a laptop inside, looking down at the steps
while going in a tube station and checking your phone for messages just
tick too many checkmarks on their checklist and make you a terrorist
suspect. How many other people are not only wrongly detained but wrongly
arrested every week in similar circumstances as myself? And how many of
them are also computer and telecoms enthusiasts that fit the Police's
terrorist behavioural profile so well? I accept and understand spot
checks can be useful, but profiling... this would be a joke if it didn't
affect many ‘innocent bystanders’.

The officers must have failed to hear the Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair
when he claimed ‘We are not in the business of stopping and searching
people who fit a particular profile.’

Interestingly, while a police officer did state that my rain jacket ‘too
warm for the season’, could it have been instead that the weather was
too cold for the season? This is what the other Met, the Met Office had
to say about the weather the day before: ‘London recorded its coldest
July day for 25 years on the 27th when temperatures only reached 15.6
°C.’ At least I'm still alive and, over a month later, no longer under
arrest.

The Police eventually decided to take No Further Action (NFA): ‘a
decision not to proceed with a prosecution’. In a democratic country
such as the UK, one would be forgiven for naively thinking that this is
the end of the matter. Under the current laws the Police are not only
entitled to keep my fingerprints and DNA samples, but apparently,
according to my solicitor, they are also entitled to hold on to what
they gathered during their investigation: notepads of the arresting
officers, photographs, interviewing tapes and any other documents they
collected and entered in the Police National Computer (PNC). (Also, at
the time of this writing, I still have no letter stating that I'm
effectively off the hook and I still haven't been given any of my
possessions back.)

Aren't the Police supposed to keep tabs only on convicted criminals and
individuals under investigation? So even though the Police consider me
innocent, otherwise they would have had a duty to prosecute me, there
will remain some mention (what exactly?) in the PNC and, if they fully
share their information with Interpol, in other Police databases around
the world as well. Isn't a state that keeps files on innocent persons a
police state?

This gradual erosion of our fundamental liberties should be of concern
to us all.

http://gizmonaut.net/bits/suspect.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,16132,1575532,00.html



This is real horrorshow, but something amazing about this story stands out to me.

Days after the bombs went off in London, I was continually astonished to see people walking around with black backpacks similar to the ones used by the bombers. Even people who looked like the bombers were wearing them.

Now, if we are talking about a place where a volcano is spilling out lava, destroying all the houses and covering the roads, you dont go there to eat lunch, do you? I know perfectly well that you have the right to wear whateve you want whenever you want, but if you know in advance that the police are using profiles to stop people, how stupid do you have to be to go out into the street, and then onto the Underground, deliberately fitting the profile? You can use any type of bag to carry your junk; why would you deliberately use a bag that is the same as the bags used by those dimwits?

Obviously you can't change what you look like, but this isn't about that. This is about being reckless in a war zone, where the police have been given powers to destroy you just because you don't look right. Only a totally fast asleep fool would keep using a bag like that, knowing what everyone now knows about the modus operandi of these very stupid bombers. There is not a single person in the whole of the UK that does not know that the bombers who blew themselvs up in London wore dark backpacks. If you wear one in the streets of London, and then go onto the underground with it, you are insane.

I have sympathy for anyone stopped by the police for no reason, but if you go out and provoke them, well, like jumping into a stream of lava, you can expect to be burned, and you will get no sympathy from me.

What is happening in the UK is not a joke. It is not fun and games. It is real, and it deserves a real response from everyone who lives here. My advice to you is do not provoke the police into destroying you. Stay off of the Underground. Make sure that in your clothing and the places you go, you do not fit the profile by changing everything that you can change to cause a mismatch.

If you want to restore the UK to what it was, then this is the first step to doing it. Change your behaviour --- can you imagine what it would be like if everyone stopped using the stations where this arrest happened? This is the only signal that the mass of people can give, indicating that we will not live for one second in a police state. Sadly, most people don't have any imagination at all, and are quite willing to carry on as if nothing is wrong. Some will even blame the people who are the victims; I just now, have poured scorn on this man for carrying the wrong type of bag.

Imagination however, is crucial. Imagine if it was you that was arrested simply because you fit the profile? Imagine the humiliaton the fear...its not hard to do, and once you put yourself in someone else's shoes, you can understand the horror almost first hand, and that should be enough to spur you to act. Or not act as appropriate.

I wonder how many people have to be stopped before everyone wakes up and takes notice. Really, it should only take one, but thanks to the low imagination rates, that isn't enough. Indeed, they have already KILLED one man and no one's behaviour changed, so why should we be concerned about this man who was stopped with a black backpack.

It's the laptop!
posted by Irdial , 11:06 AM Þ 

Some Albertans skeptical of Klein's promised flurry of $400 cheques
EDMONTON (CP) - It's one storm that might be welcome in many parts of Alberta this winter - a blizzard of $400 cheques that Premier Ralph Klein has promised for every man, woman and child lucky enough to live here.

The "prosperity bonus" is aimed at giving Joe and Jane Lunchbucket a concrete, tax-free share of the province's gushing oil riches.

You'd think giving away $1.4 billion wouldn't be that difficult, but Finance Department staff were left scrambling Wednesday to figure out how to make it happen by year-end.

[...]

That's right. Alberta's No. 1 Despot plans to buy the all-too eager public into complacency. While this article makes it seem like many people are questioning the policy, my own cynicism tells me to think otherwise (though I would hope to be proven wrong). The people of Alberta all too often play into this government's lazy, unimaginative tricks. I can see so many people just spending it as fast as they can on some useless commodity. Because really, that's the Albertan way. It doesn't matter what you buy, all that matters is that you spend your money as fast as possible.

I don't really want to look this gift horse in the mouth, but I will. Every Albertan should be insulted by this diversionary tactic. This government has so brutally dismantled education, senior's care, prisons, and health care (the latter in an effort to sneak in private third-party health care rather than reforming what we've got), that it seems odd that it would just throw all this money around rather than put it to some constructive use; especially since many of the people it's throwing the money to have no idea how to properly spend it (yeah, I'm blatantly insulting a large portion of Alberta's population - I went there).

It is baffling how many people think that the government's interests are the same as their own. Surreal. Freedom is Slavery!

On another note, this 'gift' would probably be bigger had Alberta not given away several very lucrative Natural Gas and Oil contracts to the United States. It was practically robbery, considering how many more royalties we'd be getting. But that's another story and it's late.

But but I could complain more! How about electricity and insurance deregulation?? What about the Alberta Flat Tax ?!! AAAGHH! *hemorrhage**

Fine, I'll just point you to some other blogger who is whining. (that's the word Ralph Klein uses to describe critics, interchangeable with "yippers")
posted by Barrie , 4:35 AM Þ 
Wednesday, September 21, 2005

A member of the public being shown the biometric technology
The Home Office display was a
hit with shoppers at Merry Hill


A typical response about the desirability of such measures comes from Barry Burton, from nearby Netherton.

If the ID card didn't exist, this would all still be happening
Home Office spokesperson

What data will ID cards store?

"I'm all for making everything more secure," he says. "If you've got nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear."

The roadshow is on stop three of a seven-day tour of the UK, in what has been described as a "charm offensive" to promote biometric passports and, ultimately, the government's ID card scheme, which will also rely on biometric technology.


[...]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4261858.stm


A fine piece of biased garbage by 'Ben Jeffrey' BBQ shill and professional lie spreader.

I can say this with total confidence, because there is no way that a writer of any quality (and the BBQ only hires quality people right?) would know that this phrase that I emphaquoth is one of the stock phrases of the apologists and the ignorant. It is so often used that it has become a cliche. Only an insider would print that as a genuine statement from a real punter, and if he DID come across someone who made this statement, he should not have included it, were he an honest person, because he well knows that this is not in any way a correct way of thinking aobut this issue.

We can therefore say that this pig is a jackass.

Also, look at the upside down crazy anonymous 'Home Office Spokesman' doublespeak pullquote, and the doublecrazy caption stating that it was a 'hit with the shoppers'. Listen BUSTER you are going to have to do MUCH BETTER THAN THIS, or get another inside job spreading lies, disinformation and absolute nonsense on another website.

They must believe that people in the UK are amongst the stupidest in the world to write such a thing and get away with it. For your information JACKASS the British are amongst the smartest per capita on earth, and they laugh at these pathetic word tricks and outright lies that you try to spread.

I would like to know who, as in the NAME of the person who has editorial control over the articles that appear on the BBQ site. Someone MUST check off each article, and really, these names should be prepended to every article that appears on the site so that we can monitor bias.

It's all very well signing up for creative commons and all that, but BBQ News needs to be more accountable on the article level. 'And why not?' as Barry Norman used to say; why not give all of these details at the end of each article? Time constraints cannot be given as an excuse, since the time it takes to read and approve an article will not be increased by 'signing' it - what exactly does the BBQ have to hide? Why should there not be a profile of every writer that works for the BBQ news service?

The fact is, they need to hide these details because it would then be trivial to expose bias in the articles, and the BBQ administration don't want that.
posted by Irdial , 6:15 PM Þ 

Fate is a funny old thing isn't it? Whilst CCTV footage from the 28th of June can still be found showing the London suicide bombers doing a dummy run, still no footage from Stockwell station of the de Menezes shooting, oh I forgot none of the cameras could produce any useful footage. Hmmmm.

-

Tesco: Have they bought into BT/BG Group's database with passport etc. details? And if not, who's not doing their job properly?
You're fired!
posted by meau meau , 4:44 PM Þ 

it's a horror story. Why hasn't this been discussed more?

The buck stops here. YOU need to discuss it; in detail. precisely WHY is it a horror story? You are a programmer, you know why its terrible, so spell it out!
posted by Irdial , 4:10 PM Þ 

Tesco stocks up on inside knowledge of shoppers' lives

Tesco is quietly building a profile of you, along with every individual in the country - a map of personality, travel habits, shopping preferences and even how charitable and eco-friendly you are. A subsidiary of the supermarket chain has set up a database, called Crucible, that is collating detailed information on every household in the UK, whether they choose to shop at the retailer or not.

I saw this on the newspaper round up on BBC News 24 Monday evening, it's a horror story. Why hasn't this been discussed more?
posted by alex_tea , 3:57 PM Þ 

Blogdial is going in a new design direction Huh.
Blogdial is a community that has a very slow growth.
Blogdial is a group blog with more than 50 members.
Blogdial is an example of the other take.
Blogdial is Irdials blog where you can read daily issues that are discussed.

what is it? It's it.
posted by meau meau , 3:03 PM Þ 

Like the guys who sell land plots on the moon, these guys:

http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/

are genius.
posted by Irdial , 1:48 PM Þ 
posted by meau meau , 11:12 AM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 10:30 AM Þ 

http://www.rizzn.com/2005/09/kate-moss-does-coke-world-takes.asp

It's number three.

And there is no number six.

I am number two.
posted by Irdial , 10:17 AM Þ 

For a long while I have been wanting to see a quick, concise "clearinghouse" with links for many of the very horrible things that have been going on in the past few years, many of the things we talk about here at BLOGDIAL.
Students for Orwell seems to be doing a pretty good job so far. Way to go!
posted by Barrie , 4:55 AM Þ 
Tuesday, September 20, 2005

There’s nothing hotter than an anorexic coke whore with a potty mouth.
posted by Alun , 5:46 PM Þ 

It is obvious now that such gatherings are the future. With the proliferation of broadband and the increasing availability of free internet telephony, it is possible to plonk a computer on your dinner table and enjoy a virtual meal with a distant friend. Soon, when everyone has an internet telephone service, it should be possible to have a room full of virtual guests. But why wait? With a little ingenuity, we decided to attempt the future today. Well, the day before yesterday.

We conduct the experiment using Skype the pioneering internet telephone service provider purchased recently by eBay, mainly because it works on our Guardian-issue iBooks and connects to landlines. If we limited ourselves to other Skype clients we could not assemble such a stellar guest list. Along with Agnès, novelist Rick Moody (New York), gossip columnist Paula Froelich (also New York), comedians Wil Hodgson (Chippenham) and Lucy Porter (London) and lottery winner Elaine Thompson (Lyme Regis) have all agreed to take part in the groundbreaking tea party experiment. [...]

The Guardian

My word, is this really THE BEST that they can churn out over there?
posted by Irdial , 10:57 AM Þ 
Monday, September 19, 2005

Popeye faced a different opponent in almost every adventure. Halfway through 1932, Segar wrote a narrative titled, "The Eighth Sea". A fearless fiend named, 'Bluto the Terrible' was introduced into this story. He was treated as a 'throwaway' character, the same way that Segar had originally planned to handle Popeye when he debuted in January of 1929. In the case of Bluto, Segar never returned him after Popeye was allowed to engage him in a bloody battle and defeat him with his legendary 'twisker punch'.

The following year Popeye made his motion picture debut at the hands of Max and Dave Fleischer. To add some spice to the cartoon, Olive Oyl was cast in the role of the jealous girlfriend, but the Fleischer's wanted to really spice things up, so they resurrected Bluto to be Popeye's on screen 'enemy'. He was immediately accepted as Popeye's number one nemesis.

In 1956, the old theatrical cartoons were released to television. The 'Popeye' phenomenon met an entirely new group of fans - the 'Baby Boomers'. Popeye's popularity soared. The kiddies of the 'nifty fifties' were consuming the cartoons faster than Popeye could open his can of spinach. King Features Syndicate recognized the potential of their animated adventurer - so 220 new cartoons were ordered. BUT there was a problem, the Disney organization complained that Bluto sounded too much like Pluto. To avoid legal hassles, Brutus made his screen debut in 1960's

For the next 18 years, Brutus was Popeye's formidable foe. In 1978, Hanna-Barbera introduced, "The All New Adventures of Popeye" - (aka "The Popeye Hour"), and Bluto was returned to the stories. Unfortunately, Brutus was not. It's too bad, because the cartoon series might have been fun with the two bad guys teaming-up against good guy Popeye.


http://www.popeye-n-olive.com/snipplets.html
posted by Irdial , 3:40 PM Þ 
posted by chriszanf , 2:53 PM Þ 

How can I build my confidence?
posted by captain davros , 2:29 PM Þ 
Sunday, September 18, 2005

It be the easy seat.

Naturally, I'd want this.
posted by captain davros , 11:37 AM Þ 
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