August 24, 2008
who's got the XP Amazon's got the XP
I see that during my week in Bermuda some things haven't changed as the Amazon blog point out:
In the past few weeks things reached a sort of fever pitch. There was this survey, revealing a third of Vista users downgraded to XP. Taiwan is now looking into a lawsuit to hold onto the old OS. Microsoft is playing both sides. On the one hand they’re after naysayers with the “Mojave Experiment” campaign, which Mike Elgan compares to being “punk’d” by Ashton Kutcher here. On the other hand they’ve started a blog to keep track of Windows 7 developments, fueling speculation that the software giant is nearly ready to forget about Vista itself.
Well it is still for sale at Amazon.
Via Glenn whose blog I'm slowing catching up on.
Posted by Peter at 01:57 PM
August 04, 2008
It all depends on what the words "No censorship" means
Looks like the IOC is talking out of both sides of its mouth:
IOC President Jacques Rogge news conference Saturday:
"foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet."
From wired news today:
"I'm not going to make an apology for something that the IOC is not responsible for," Rogge said "We are not running the Internet in China. The Chinese authorities are running the Internet."
IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies:
There's been no change in the IOC's position
These people sound like they are running for office.
UPDATE:
Of course there is oppression and there is OPPRESSION:
Police said the 42-year-old man dialed 911 twice last week so he could have his sub made correctly. The second call was to complain that officers weren't arriving fast enough.
After all some things are beyond the pale.
Posted by Peter at 04:41 PM
July 30, 2008
The IOC feeds the Ducks
Ah the Olympics! The International Olympic committee work hard to provide the joys that they bring: sportsmanship, competition, web censorship:
The Chinese government confirmed Wednesday what journalists arriving at the lavishly outfitted media center here had suspected: Contrary to previous assurances by Olympic and government officials, the Internet would be censored during the upcoming games.Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages - politically sensitive ones that discuss Tibetan succession, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown of the protests in Tiananmen Square and the sites of Amnesty International, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.
On Wednesday - two weeks after its most recent proclamation of an uncensored Internet during the Summer Games - the International Olympic Committee quietly agreed to some of the limitations, according to Kevan Gosper, chairman of the IOC press commission, Reuters reported.
I guess you can say China walks like a duck.
Posted by Peter at 07:54 PM
If it walks like a duck....
And now the latest news from Egypt:
Hossam Bahgat, the director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, says the detention of Maher and 14 other members of the activist group "Facebook Youth," is tied to its continued detention of dozens of textile factory workers and townspeople from Mahalla, a large city in the Nile Delta."These detentions are vindictive," Mr. Bahgat says. "Security agencies appear to be still bitter about the overwhelming public support for the April 6 strike and the new detentions... are clearly aimed at deterring any similar mobilization in the future by sending a chilling message that a price will be paid."
Jay Nordlinger has the best quote on the whole situation:
Turn to Egypt: I’ve met a fair amount of Egyptian officials in my time. Some of them are golden (really); some of them are louses (really, really). All of them get huffy when you suggest that Egypt is a dictatorship — even a “presidential dictatorship.” They get very huffy when you suggest that Egypt is less than free. Well, lately, they’ve been jailing bloggers and Facebook users. If you don’t want to be called a police state — don’t act like one.
Ditto
Posted by Peter at 01:37 PM
July 23, 2008
Olympics Osmipics China is still China
You didn't really think that China was going to treat web speech differently during the Olympics did you?
Chinese police have arrested a prominent Internet dissident for violating his probation terms, a rights group said, as the country steps up a pre-Olympic crackdown on dissent to ensure the Games go smoothly. ADVERTISEMENTDu Daobin, from the central province of Hebei, was given a suspended sentence for subversion in 2004 having been detained by police in Wuhan for posting online essays in support of fellow dissident, Liu Di.
Du was then released into house arrest, Reporters Without Borders said in an emailed statement, but was arrested this week having been accused of posting articles on overseas websites and receiving guests without permission.
Yup just another day on the internet in China.
Posted by Peter at 03:47 PM
June 16, 2008
Live by the link die by the link
Looks like the AP is finding out live by fair use and die by fair use. It all started here:
I'm currently engaged in a legal disagreement with the Associated Press, which claims that Drudge Retort users linking to its stories are violating its copyright and committing "'hot news' misappropriation under New York state law." An AP attorney filed six Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown requests this week demanding the removal of blog entries and another for a user comment.
The site is a fairly small site unlikely to be able to afford the heavy legal expense of fighting. Blog reaction was rather swift:
What a brilliant move — try to drive away the very people who are luring others to your content. What is AP trying to do — blow up the blogging world?
Jeff Jarvis, media reporter, founding editor of Entertainment Weekly and a reporter who lives in both the print and blog worlds answered in a post who's title I won't repeat:
This complaint comes from an organization that leaches off original reporting and kills links and credit to the source of that journalism. Yes, it has a right to reproduce reporting from member news organizations. But as I point out here, the AP is hurting original reporting by not crediting and linking to the journalism at its source. We should be operating under an ethic of the link to original reporting; this is an ethic that the AP systematically violates.
His solution was simple:
Who needs the AP tapioca when we can get reporting like this from the source wtih no more than a link? Isn’t it a better service to reader and journalist to link directly to the original reporting?So, bloggers, unless the AP recants and apologizes to Cadenhead, I urge you to avoid linking to the AP and to link to reporting at its source.
The blogger response has had some effect as of today:
The about-face resulted from a large number of bloggers deciding not to send their readers to the AP’s sites, which would impact the advertising revenues gained from the extra traffic. The AP’s clients most likely explained that in an era of declining ad revenues for the news industry, they needed all the help they could get. The AP’s policy would have cut sharply into their sales — and would have eventually pushed those sites to use Reuters, AFP, BBC, and UPI feeds instead.
You don't throw an anchor to a drowning man.
Posted by Peter at 02:18 PM
May 05, 2008
US hotels meet William Bambridge
Before the time of the wars with the Barbary Pirates the very young United States entered a treaty with the Barbary Pirates which involved the payment of tribute for the right of not being attacked by their ships, it was the cost of doing business. In 1800 Captain William Bambridge of the USS George Washington took the annual tribute to the Dey of Algers. After delivering the tribute payment he was ordered by the Dey to transport his ambassador to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) when Bambridge protested the Dey answered thusly:
You pay me tribute, by which you become my slaves, I have therefore a right to order you as I may think proper.
It came to mind when I saw this article today concerning China and US hotel chains:
The Chinese government is demanding that US-owned hotels there filter Internet service during the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, US Senator Sam Brownback has alleged.The Chinese government is requiring US-owned hotels to install Internet filters to "monitor and restrict information coming in and out of China," Brownback said Thursday. "This is an insult to the spirit of the games and an affront to American businesses," he said. "I call on China to immediately rescind this demand."
Since the bill we wrote about last week has yet to pass it seems likely that US Hotels, like Bambridge before them will end up doing what they are told. Of course I find it highly unlikely that in a few years the hotels will emulate his later record.
Posted by Peter at 11:56 AM
May 02, 2008
There oughta be a law?
How do you stop companies from repressing internet speech in repressive countries? Well via slashdot we find out that some people think there oughta be a law:
Smith recently announced his plans to push the Global Online Freedom Act (HR 275) to the House floor for voting after having lobbied human rights organization Reporters Without Borders for support. Among other things, the Global Online Freedom Act will bar US companies from disclosing personally-identifiable information about a user, except for "legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes."
I strongly suspect this one won't make it through. It will be fought tooth and nail. Then again there are some forms of speech that aren't very popular but might be protected nonetheless:
In a 4-3 ruling in February, the state's high court upheld three convictions against Jeremy D. Jaynes for violating Virginia's 2003 Anti-Spam Act. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.The ruling was hailed by authorities as a victory for e-mail users and decried by others as a violation of constitutionally protected speech rights.
Yesterday, however, the justices agreed to hear arguments on whether Jaynes could challenge the anti-spam law as unconstitutional in general, even if it was constitutionally applied to him.
Hey nobody said all speech would be good speech.
Posted by Peter at 08:50 PM
April 29, 2008
What happens on the web stays everywhere
The Washington Post discovers what we've known for a while. There is not such thing as privacy on the web:
"I know for a fact that when a superintendent in Missouri was interviewing potential teachers last year, he would ask, 'Do you have a Facebook or MySpace page?' " said Todd Fuller, a spokesman for the Missouri State Teachers Association, which is warning members to clean up their pages. "If the candidate said yes, then the superintendent would say, 'I've got my computer up right now. Let's take a look.' "
Read the whole thing (registration may be required for page one) and remember what some of these teachers are discovering, if you put yourself on the web you will be seen.
Posted by Peter at 08:25 AM
April 27, 2008
Score one for the good guys
Well it took 137 days but Saudi blogger Fouad al-Farhan has been released by the Saudi government who arrested him without charge. We'll take it.
Posted by Peter at 11:14 AM
April 09, 2008
I bet you think this song is about you
You know there was a time when you could get away with this:
...a spokesman for Phorm refused to comment on why it had tried to censor a quotation from The Guardian's commercial executives describing the ethical stance they took against its tracking system. He also refused to talk about the deletion of a passage explaining how BT admitted it misled customers over the 2007 secret trial.Phorm also deleted a link to the The Register's report on the 2006 trial, and accompanying reference to BT's own document. It said that the aim of the trial was to validate that users were unaware of the presence of the tracking system.
More details at techdirt. Bottom line is you can't hide things on the net.
Posted by Peter at 02:01 PM
March 01, 2008
Blogging blogging everywhere
Some blogging news:
Did you know Youtube had a blog? I never noticed.
The Air Force is blocking blogs, this is rather foolish and only copies the practices of many unsavory countries.
According to WordPress' founder a quarter of blogs are spam. This is no surprise.
One of my favorite blogs Captain's Quarters is shutting down, he is moving to and been hired by HotAir blog. Our podcast interview is here.
Posted by Peter at 06:11 PM
February 29, 2008
Internet speech the cost
I have championed the cause of internet speech many times on this site and have argued that it should be protected and encouraged. Yesterday we found out that said speech has its price, this story:
Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt, who is head of the British Army, said that the Prince's conduct on operations had been "exemplary" and that he is a "credit to the nation".The deployment had been cloaked in secrecy under a news blackout deal agreed across the UK media to prevent details reaching the Taliban and endangering Prince Harry and his comrades.
But the arrangement broke down today after news was leaked out on the US website the Drudge Report. (emphasis mine)
Lead to this:
ARMY Chiefs have decided to pull Prince Harry out of Afghanistan, The Sun can reveal.The Ministry of Defence confirmed that the 23-year-old officer's war had come to an end in a statement late this morning.
The first story led to the 2nd. The same free speech that allows us to say what we want and express what we feel also can reveal military secrets and or personal info that we might not want out there.
That doesn't mean that internet speech is bad, it just means like everything in life it costs something.
Update: Sammizdata.net elaborates on the issue:
I am all for the media and new media reporting the news and in particular news that the powers-that-be might be discomforted by. However reporting a wartime operation detail likely to increase the chance particular group of serving soldiers will attacked by the enemy (namely revealing the presence of a political 'high value target' in the war zone) fall way outside acceptable behaviour.
Posted by Peter at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2008
Who says 180,000 people can't be wrong?
A Wikipedia update: You know you've just got to love it when free speech on the net trumps that many voices:
More than 180,000 worldwide have joined an online protest claiming the images, shown on European-language pages and taken from Persian and Ottoman miniatures dating from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, are offensive to Islam, which prohibits any representation of Muhammad. But the defiant editors of the encyclopaedia insist they will not bow to pressure and say anyone objecting to the controversial images can simply adjust their computers so they do not have to look at them.
The say furthermore:
'Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with the goal of representing all topics from a neutral point of view, Wikipedia is not censored for the benefit of any particular group.
Via Dhimmi Watch which does note Wikipedia's weaknesses:
Anyway, while I respect this "defiance," ordinarily talking about Wikipedia defying anything is silly. Wikipedia doesn't defy. For the most part it is a sandbox with no grownups. Anyone can come in with a can of spray paint and "vandalize" any topic he chooses. Just the other day I was alerted to the fact that on my ridiculous bio there, a poster had added "died 2008" after "born 1962." Classy! It's gone now, but it demonstrates anew how worthless Wikipedia really is, despite its good stand on this issue. It is too easy to sow disinformation (and, in my case, make threats) there.
Or lets put it another way, Wikipedia may be brave but it is what it is and should be used accordingly. Personally I'll stick with this one.
Posted by Peter at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2008
Barbarian follow up
It's been two years since our posts on the Danish Muhammad cartoon flap. It may be two years but barbarians are like elephants, they never forget:
The arrests were made in pre-dawn raids in Aarhus, western Denmark, "to prevent a terror-related murder," the police intelligence agency said. It did not say how many people were arrested nor did it mention which cartoonist was targeted.However, according to Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the drawings on Sept. 30, 2005, the suspects were planning to kill its cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
"There were very concrete murder plans against Kurt Westergaard," said Carsten Juste, the paper's editor-in-chief.
The 73 year old cartoonist and his wife are living under police protection. It is very likely that this will have to continue for a very long time.
The newspaper in Denmark has to it credit has reprinted the cartoons in solidarity with the cartoonist today. Several major blogs have also done so.
Two years ago I pointed to the reasons why we didn't publish the cartoons on our posts concerning the matter.
In my opinion those circumstances have changed. It is impossible to tell the story without showing the cartoon in question. And it is a story that needs to be told. The great strength and advantage of the internet is the free sharing of information. We have written about it over and over again (even before we had a category for it). It's time to put our pixels where our mouths fingers are.
The day when images like this are censored and those who make then slain will be a dark day for the internet. But if you might recall a lot of this trouble was completely contrived.
Posted by Peter at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2008
Three more cheers for wikipedia
You might remember two years ago China wanted Wikipedia to censor politically sensitive sites and wikipedia told them to take a flying leap.
At the time we said this:
Wikipedia has its faults, but apparently lack of guts or honor is not among them.
Well it looks like their guts haven't decreased over time as groups have demanded removal of images of Muhammad from the entry on the founder of Islam.
Wikipedia being wikipedia had this to say:
Please note that discussion on this talk page has determined that pictures of Muhammad will not be removed from this article and any removal of the pictures without discussion here first will be reverted on sight. If you wish to discuss the inclusion of pictures in the article, please read over previous discussions here, here, and here and the Muhammad article FAQ at this page.
Fearless internet speech, gotta love it.
Posted by Peter at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2008
In the great tradition of Western Inquiry
As I mentioned around Christmastime I got quite a few books for Christmas the one I'm spending the most time on is Victor David Hanson's Carnage and Culture Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power.
One of the common theme that runs through the book. The traditions of western inquiry and willingness to to employ (and to allow) critical thinking over and over allows western civilization to either win even when vastly outnumbered or recover from what would normally be a crushing defeat. Bottom line is the greater the freedom the greater potential.
This is one of the reasons why internet free speech is huge. The internet is used for a lot of silly things, but it is also a crucible for the free flow of ideas and debate,from political and scientific and artistic.
And if access to information was not enough the nature of blogs allow any person who can afford an internet connection (and some who can't) the ability to put their own thought out there and have a back and forth with any connected person in the world.
This has incredible potential for both good and bad in it, but this potential is untapped when you restrict these freedoms.
This is why we should be grateful for where we are and what we have. Being a part of it we just don't understand how good it is for us. It's also why net censorship is a two edged sword for those countries who want to keep a grip on their people, they want the potential benefits without the freedoms that come with it. In the end they will find it is not possible.
Posted by Peter at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2008
So much for high hopes
After blogging from the sickbed hoping I won't use this category much this year what do I find on the web when I do a quick scan when I wake up? This (Registration for full article required):
The regulations stipulate that online videos can be broadcast or streamed only by state-owned or state-controlled companies. That means video sites could face the same treatment as television broadcasters and newspapers, which also are controlled by the state.
A more vanilla overview of the rule is here its very dry but quite revealing.
Via ValleyWag by way of Glenn. It's interesting to note that Vallywags commentators don't seem to be very phased by this. They would do well to remember the playwright Sophocles wrote thousands of years ago: "Free men have free tongues". I suppose today that would be free people stream freely.
Posted by Peter at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)
A bad start for net speech in 2008
On the heels of the Saudi's arrest of a prominent blogger we get this rather incredible report concerning of all places England! Gates of Vienna blog has the story and the blogger in question says this:
I am currently out of the Country and on my return home to England I am going to be arrested by British detectives on suspicion of Stirring up Racial Hatred by displaying written material" contrary to sections 18(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986.This charge if found guilty carries a lengthy prison sentence
As a student of history I have been a bit of an anglophile all my life. I've always believed that one of the great gifts to the world is English Common law. Even when it has failed to live up to its ideas those principles spread all over the world are the basis for the freedoms that pressed for all over the world. That free speech is extended via the internet to people who have never seen it before. Lionheart continues:
What has become of my homeland, the land my forefathers fought and died for on the battlefields of the world when one of their children is forced into the position of facing years in prison for standing up for what is right and just within British society.
As a tech blog his opinions are not of much interest to us however his ability to express them freely on the net is very much in our interest. Speaking a an individual one may agree or disagree with his positions but it is rather disgraceful for him to be threatened with arrest for them.
I suspect even more than their Christmas shipping record (still not here yet) this will take the shine off new British coins for me from the Royal Mint.
Since two of the first four posts of the year unfortunately have been bad news on the free speech front I've decided to finally add an internet speech category of the blog. I will be very happy if this category gets little need for future use. I'd much rather be griping about Vista or Limewire or talking about the benefits of our PC Guardian service.
Posted by Peter at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2007
The first sign of trouble
What is a sure sign that things that internet freedom are in a place is getting iffy? When the Kremlin decides to take a peek at what is going on there. You have to give them credit rather than just closing site down they are manipulating the net with style; just look:
Pavel Danilin, a 30-year-old Putin supporter and blogger whose online icon is the fearsome robot of the "Terminator" movie, works for a political consulting company loyal to the Kremlin. He said he and his team, which included people from a youth movement called the Young Guard, quickly started blogging that day about a smaller, pro-Kremlin march held at the same time.They linked to one another repeatedly and soon, Danilin said, posts about the pro-Kremlin march had crowded out all the items about the opposition march on the Yandex Web portal's coveted ranking of the top five Russian blog posts.
"We played it beautifully," Danilin said.
I've always argued that the cure for speech is more speech. It looks like the Kremlin has really taken it to heart with a sneaky twist.
Posted by Peter at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2007
The difference between free and not
You know as a person blogging for a business I expect some limitations on blogging topics and content, however things have been pretty easy going around here.
However if you live somewhere that is not so free you have to take drastic steps to blog:
When 32-year-old Yoani Sanchez wants to update her blog about daily life in Cuba, she dresses like a tourist and strides confidently into a Havana hotel, greeting the staff in German.That is because Cubans like Sanchez are not authorized to use hotel Internet connections, which are reserved for foreigners.
It's pretty bad when you give preference to people other than your own.
She and a handful of other independent bloggers are opening up a crack in the government's tight control over media and information to give the rest of the world a glimpse of life in a one-party, Communist state.
Read the whole thing and be grateful that you don't have to jump through the hoops that these people do to say what they want to say.
Posted by Peter at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)