Episode40
From Technolotics
Contents |
Police State UK - The abuse of antisocial behaviour orders
- A physics graduate is fined £80 for describing a metal detector as "piece of shit that wouldn't stop anyone" in public.
- Kurt Walker fined £80 for using the word "fuck" in a public park in Kent. He's refusing to pay.
- ASBO Law states that it's illegal to use threatening words or behaviour likely to cause alarm, harassment or distress.
- Main problem with an ASBO is that due process does not occur.
- Civil court orders which can be based on hearsay evidence. The burden of proof is much lower than in a criminal case.
- Police only have to persuade a judge that your behaviour "may cause harassment or alarm or distress" to someone else to get one imposed.
- Makes it very hard to defend oneself.
- Less than 1% of applications for ASBOs have been refused.
- Up to 35% of young people with asbos in the UK had a diagnosed mental disorder or accepted learning difficulty.
- But breaching an ASBO is a criminal offence. With penalty in the UK of 5 years in jail.
- Asbos can be used to criminalise behaviour that would otherwise not be illegal. Including:
- playing football,
- feeding pigeons,
- swearing,
- being sarcastic and
- riding a bicycle
- Restricts individuals rights of free speech and association.
- Little or no evidence they actually solve anything.
- Justice Minister Michael McDowell plans to introduce them in Ireland.
Links
- The Register news article
- BBC News: Teenager fined £80 for swear word
- The Case Against Anti Social Behaviour Orders: Coalition Against ASBOs, March 2005
- 10 things you should know about Asbos
- A Guide to Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and Acceptable Behaviour Contracts
China harvesting Falun Gong organs, report alleges.
- 60,000 organ transplants recorded between 2000 and 2005 (by China Medical Organ Transplant Association)
- 18,500 of the organs came from identifiable sources.
- 41,500 transplants from no other explained sources.
- There is a booming transplant industry in China.
- Number of liver transplant centres has jumped from 22 in 1999 to 500 in 2006.
- Number of liver transplant operations has jumped from 135 to 4,000 in the same period.
- Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of the Falun Gong in China (CIPFG)
- Made recordings of phone calls to hospitals, prisons and transplant centres.
- organs from alleged Falun Gong prisoners were promised to prospective buyers within as little as a week
- Ex-wife of Chinese surgeon alleges that he removed the corneas from 2,000 euthanized Falun Gong prisoners over a 2 year period.
- All died and their bodies were burned.
- China admitted in 2005 that it harvests and sells the organs of executed prisoners.
- British Transplantation Society alleged China without the consent of prisoners or next of kin.
- Report by former MP David Kilgour and Winnipeg lawyer David Matas.
- Report based on recordings of phone calls, interviews, and info taken from chinese hospital and transplant centre websites.
Links
BPI: We should be able to cut off your Internet
- British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has requested 2 ISP's to terminate the DSL connections of customers allegedly engaged in infringing file-sharing.
- BPI asked for immediate action without due process based on the evidence of a single screenshot.
- Tiscali has refused to comply stating "It is not for Tiscali, as an ISP, nor the BPI, as a trade association, to effectively act as a regulator or law enforcement agency and deny individuals the right to defend themselves against the allegations made against them."
- "Notice-and-takedown" regime allows censorship of web-pages if they allegedly infringe copyrright.
- Embedded in law in Europe through the EUCD and in the US via the infamous DMCA.
- Used by the Church of Scientology to silence critics.
- WTO used it to silence a parody site.
- Diebold used it to suppress the publication of a whistle-blower memo that detailed the critical failings of their voting machines.
- Significantly it only works on material hosted on the ISP's server.
- Notice-and-termination, is the new proposed regime.
- The ability to communicate over the Internet can be removed by anyone claiming you're infringing copyright.
- Alternatively internet connections may be crippled only supporting bandwidths and protocols approved by the entertainment industry.
- It is being proposed as a United Nations treaty obligation, hence every ISP would be forced to adopt this regime.
- An obvious target is P2P networks which Notice-and-takedown is ineffective against.
- Requests for takedowns usually generated by software bots, which often mistakenly identify copyright infringements.
- No presumption of innocence for the alleged copyright infringer.
- No method for someone to defend themselves.
- Entertainment industry becomes judge, jury with the ISP as executioner.
Links
- Boing Boing article: BPI: We should be able to cut off your Internet
- Ars Technica article: British music industry, concerned about piracy, targets ISPs
- Ars Technica article: British ISP tells recording industry to provide real file sharing evidence
Games That Never Age: The Unrecognized Potential of Procedural Synthesis.
- Everyone has heard of Procedural Synthesis and what it can achieve.
- Astounding graphics but with very small file sizes.
- What is procedural synthesis?
- Method of using mathematics to produce real-time graphics instead of pre-rendered imagery.
- Base components are created such as the texture of bark or tree leaves.
- Algorithms then make them look different as they are re-used throughtout the game.
- When you consider the number of re-used textures in games you see the benefits: walls, sidewalks, sky etc.
- Drawback of procedurally generated graphics is that it's computationally intensive.
- Lack of computing power restricts the complexity of algorithms that modify textures.
- However as processors get faster then higher resolution textures can simply created by modifying the algorithms that work with the base textures.
- Graphics of games can improve as better algorithms are released and downloaded via automatic updates.
- Problems include:
- It won't be widely adopted.
- Every visual element a game is not procedurally generated, hence not everything can be upgraded.
- You're still playing the same game, procedural synthesis doesn't address gameplay only graphics.
- Why not AI procedurally generated so you can get updates of smarter opponents?
- Will Wright's latest project: Spore uses procedural synthesis liberally.
- This includes the way creatures move and behave being generated on the fly.
Links
Short Stories
FBI plans new net-wiretapping push
- FBI has drafted legislation that requires ISPs to create wiretap hubs for surveillance
- It also will force networking gear manufacturers to build "backdoors" in equipment to enable eavesdropping
- Measures included are:
- Expanding wiretapping requirements to "commercial" Internet services including instant messaging if the FCC deems it to be in the "public interest."
- Forcing ISP's to monitor and identify for instance VoIP calls.
- Remove the requirement that the Justice Department publish a "notice of the actual number of communications interceptions" every year
- FBI claims changes in law needed to thwart terrorists and criminals who have turned to such things as VOIP.
Links
Microsoft hit with 280m euro fine
- Microsoft fined for failing to comply with anti-competition ruling.
- Landmark ruling in 2004 ordered Microsoft to provide rivals with info on Windows.
- Microsoft was ordered to supply "complete and accurate" technical information to rival developers.
- Aim was to allow rival firms to write programs that could run more smoothly on Windows.
- Daily fines of 3 million a day will come into effect from the 31st of July if Microsoft fails to comply.
- Microsoft claims to have complied and will appeal the fine.
- It also plans to argue that the commission's original demand was too vague.
Links
Friendster wins a patent on social networking
- Friendster has received a patent that covers online social networks.
- patent,is extremely general would seem to cover the activities of many other sites
- Patent refers to a “system, method, and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks.”
- Patent covers the basic steps involved in joining a social network:
- entering a personal description and relationships to other users,
- mapping relationships and degrees of separation,
- and connecting to others through these friends.
- Company could in future pursue licenses and litigation from its competitors.
- Expecially LinkedIn (covered last week) that allows people to connect within a certain number of degrees of separation.
- Patent could be challenged in the patent system or the courts.
- “Once the patent is issued there is a presumption of validity that follows with it,” said attorney Bill Heinze of Thomas, Kayden, Horstemeyer & Risley.
- Friendster has fallen on hard times, eclipsed by rivals such as MySpace.
- Patent was applied for about 3 years ago
- Another 11 patents are in the pipeline for Friendster.
Links
Media Pimp
Mark
The Skeptics Guide To The Universe
