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Posted: Tue Jan 3rd, 2006 08:40 pm |
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Microsoft Prepares Patch for Windows Flaw
By ALLISON LINN,
AP Business Writer
Microsoft Corp. says it will be at least a week before it issues a fix to a recently discovered vulnerability that could let an attacker take control of an Internet-connected computer.
Microsoft said Tuesday it has created a patch for the flaw in its Windows operating system but needs to test it first. The software giant said it hopes to release the patch as part of its regular monthly security updates next Tuesday.
The Redmond company confirmed late last week that some people were trying to take advantage of a flaw in an element of Windows that is used to view images. If a user is tricked into viewing an image, such as on a malicious Web site or within an e-mail attachment, that person's computer could be attacked.
Microsoft said Tuesday that its research indicates the attacks are not widespread. The fact that the vulnerability requires a person to take action say, opening an e-mail from a stranger could mitigate the potential damage.
But Marc Maiffret, an executive with eEye Digital Security Inc. of Aliso Viejo, Calif., said the vulnerability still could be troubling because personal firewalls will offer little protection and the attacks can easily be modified to get around security software such as antivirus programs.
Another concern is that the flaw affects versions of Windows desktop and server software dating back to Windows 98.
"It's basically almost any Windows PC right now that you can compromise if you can trick a person to going to the wrong Web site or opening the wrong e-mail," Maiffret said.
While it tests a fix, Microsoft is offering some technical options for decreasing the risk of an exploit. Security experts say the flaw also reinforces the importance of not opening e-mails from strangers or visiting suspect Web sites.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060103/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_security&printer=1;
_ylt=AosccYFoxjcadAC6THU4nipk24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Tue Jan 24th, 2006 06:44 pm |
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Internet Explorer 7 leaks onto Internet
PC Pro | January 24 2006
Microsoft had promised to go public on Internet Explorer 7 in the first quarter of this year. But as a part of Microsoft's eternally-delayed Windows Vista, one might have thought IE7 would suffer the same setbacks.
However, some Windows fans took matters into their own hands when last Friday it was revealed that a build of the new browser - version 5299 - along with numerous screenshots, was available online.
Not that Microsoft had anything to do with the leak. Its involvement was limited to taking down the link to the code where it was posted on Windows techie forum JCXP.net. But that was not before several thousand expectant fans had got their browsers pointed at it.
Of equal concern to Microsoft may be the number of times the patch, which allows the IE7 build to be installed on pirate copies of Windows, has been downloaded - currently running at more than 12,000 times.
The screenshots certainly seem to show off the many new features expected of IE 7, with items such as tabbed browsing clearly visible. Likewise a number of the under-the-bonnet changes are also shown on some screenshots, such as the ability to delete browsing history.
This, coupled with Microsoft's actions, gives credulity to the belief that the release is genuine, although Redmond has yet to officially respond to the event.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/january2006/240106internetexplorer.htm
Related News
Internet Explorer 7 Preview
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/ie7_preview_1.asp
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Fri Feb 3rd, 2006 11:35 am |
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The End of the Internet?
The Nation/Jeff Chester | February 3 2006
The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.
Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.
Under the plans they are considering, all of us--from content providers to individual users--would pay more to surf online, stream videos or even send e-mail. Industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing "platinum," "gold" and "silver" levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received.
To make this pay-to-play vision a reality, phone and cable lobbyists are now engaged in a political campaign to further weaken the nation's communications policy laws. They want the federal government to permit them to operate Internet and other digital communications services as private networks, free of policy safeguards or governmental oversight. Indeed, both the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are considering proposals that will have far-reaching impact on the Internet's future. Ten years after passage of the ill-advised Telecommunications Act of 1996, telephone and cable companies are using the same political snake oil to convince compromised or clueless lawmakers to subvert the Internet into a turbo-charged digital retail machine.
The telephone industry has been somewhat more candid than the cable industry about its strategy for the Internet's future. Senior phone executives have publicly discussed plans to begin imposing a new scheme for the delivery of Internet content, especially from major Internet content companies. As Ed Whitacre, chairman and CEO of AT&T, told Business Week in November, "Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!"
The phone industry has marshaled its political allies to help win the freedom to impose this new broadband business model. At a recent conference held by the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank funded by Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and other media companies, there was much discussion of a plan for phone companies to impose fees on a sliding scale, charging content providers different levels of service. "Price discrimination," noted PFF's resident media expert Adam Thierer, "drives the market-based capitalist economy."
Net Neutrality
To ward off the prospect of virtual toll booths on the information highway, some new media companies and public-interest groups are calling for new federal policies requiring "network neutrality" on the Internet. Common Cause, Amazon, Google, Free Press, Media Access Project and Consumers Union, among others, have proposed that broadband providers would be prohibited from discriminating against all forms of digital content. For example, phone or cable companies would not be allowed to slow down competing or undesirable content.
Without proactive intervention, the values and issues that we care about--civil rights, economic justice, the environment and fair elections--will be further threatened by this push for corporate control. Imagine how the next presidential election would unfold if major political advertisers could make strategic payments to Comcast so that ads from Democratic and Republican candidates were more visible and user-friendly than ads of third-party candidates with less funds. Consider what would happen if an online advertisement promoting nuclear power prominently popped up on a cable broadband page, while a competing message from an environmental group was relegated to the margins. It is possible that all forms of civic and noncommercial online programming would be pushed to the end of a commercial digital queue.
But such "neutrality" safeguards are inadequate to address more fundamental changes the Bells and cable monopolies are seeking in their quest to monetize the Internet. If we permit the Internet to become a medium designed primarily to serve the interests of marketing and personal consumption, rather than global civic-related communications, we will face the political consequences for decades to come. Unless we push back, the "brandwashing" of America will permeate not only our information infrastructure but global society and culture as well.
Why are the Bells and cable companies aggressively advancing such plans? With the arrival of the long-awaited "convergence" of communications, our media system is undergoing a major transformation. Telephone and cable giants envision a potential lucrative "triple play," as they impose near-monopoly control over the residential broadband services that send video, voice and data communications flowing into our televisions, home computers, cell phones and iPods. All of these many billions of bits will be delivered over the telephone and cable lines.
Video programming is of foremost interest to both the phone and cable companies. The telephone industry, like its cable rival, is now in the TV and media business, offering customers television channels, on-demand videos and games. Online advertising is increasingly integrating multimedia (such as animation and full-motion video) in its pitches. Since video-driven material requires a great deal of Internet bandwidth as it travels online, phone and cable companies want to make sure their television "applications" receive preferential treatment on the networks they operate. And their overall influence over the stream of information coming into your home (or mobile device) gives them the leverage to determine how the broadband business evolves.
Mining Your Data
At the core of the new power held by phone and cable companies are tools delivering what is known as "deep packet inspection." With these tools, AT&T and others can readily know the packets of information you are receiving online--from e-mail, to websites, to sharing of music, video and software downloads.
These "deep packet inspection" technologies are partly designed to make sure that the Internet pipeline doesn't become so congested it chokes off the delivery of timely communications. Such products have already been sold to universities and large businesses that want to more economically manage their Internet services. They are also being used to limit some peer-to-peer downloading, especially for music.
But these tools are also being promoted as ways that companies, such as Comcast and Bell South, can simply grab greater control over the Internet. For example, in a series of recent white papers, Internet technology giant Cisco urges these companies to "meter individual subscriber usage by application," as individuals' online travels are "tracked" and "integrated with billing systems." Such tracking and billing is made possible because they will know "the identity and profile of the individual subscriber," "what the subscriber is doing" and "where the subscriber resides."
Will Google, Amazon and the other companies successfully fight the plans of the Bells and cable companies? Ultimately, they are likely to cut a deal because they, too, are interested in monetizing our online activities. After all, as Cisco notes, content companies and network providers will need to "cooperate with each other to leverage their value proposition." They will be drawn by the ability of cable and phone companies to track "content usage...by subscriber," and where their online services can be "protected from piracy, metered, and appropriately valued."
Our Digital Destiny
It was former FCC chairman Michael Powell, with the support of then-commissioner and current chair Kevin Martin, who permitted phone and cable giants to have greater control over broadband. Powell and his GOP majority eliminated longstanding regulatory safeguards requiring phone companies to operate as nondiscriminatory networks (technically known as "common carriers"). He refused to require that cable companies, when providing Internet access, also operate in a similar nondiscriminatory manner. As Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig has long noted, it is government regulation of the phone lines that helped make the Internet today's vibrant, diverse and democratic medium.
But now, the phone companies are lobbying Washington to kill off what's left of "common carrier" policy. They wish to operate their Internet services as fully "private" networks. Phone and cable companies claim that the government shouldn't play a role in broadband regulation: Instead of the free and open network that offers equal access to all, they want to reduce the Internet to a series of business decisions between consumers and providers.
Besides their business interests, telephone and cable companies also have a larger political agenda. Both industries oppose giving local communities the right to create their own local Internet wireless or wi-fi networks. They also want to eliminate the last vestige of local oversight from electronic media--the ability of city or county government, for example, to require telecommunications companies to serve the public interest with, for example, public-access TV channels. The Bells also want to further reduce the ability of the FCC to oversee communications policy. They hope that both the FCC and Congress--via a new Communications Act--will back these proposals.
The future of the online media in the United States will ultimately depend on whether the Bells and cable companies are allowed to determine the country's "digital destiny." So before there are any policy decisions, a national debate should begin about how the Internet should serve the public. We must insure that phone and cable companies operate their Internet services in the public interest--as stewards for a vital medium for free expression.
If Americans are to succeed in designing an equitable digital destiny for themselves, they must mount an intensive opposition similar to the successful challenges to the FCC's media ownership rules in 2003. Without such a public outcry to rein in the GOP's corporate-driven agenda, it is likely that even many of the Democrats who rallied against further consolidation will be "tamed" by the well-funded lobbying campaigns of the powerful phone and cable industry.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/february2006/030206endofinternet.htm
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Fri Feb 3rd, 2006 06:13 pm |
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Computer Bug Deletes Files
Sky News | February 3 2006
A timebomb computer virus is set to detonate any time now, users have been warned.
The bug, know as BlackWorm, Kama Sutra, Mywife or CME-24, has spread through email attachments promising pornography.
If an attachment - sometimes named "Hot Movie" or "Miss Lebanon 2006" - is opened, the computer becomes infected.
Then, on the third day of every month, it will try to delete file on Windows computers, including Adobe PDFs, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.
It even tries to disable anti-virus software that is out of date.
BlackWorm is not thought to be as widespread as other viruses.
But worms are generally designed to help spammers and hackers carry out attacks, not to destroy files like this one does.
This means the impact of a the bug may be more severe.
Computer giant Microsoft has warned customers to make sure they have the latest anti-virus software and that it is turned on.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/february2006/030206bug.htm
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Tue Feb 7th, 2006 02:59 pm |
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Report: Google Wants To Build Its Own Internet...
The New York Post | HOLLY M. SANDERS | February 7 2006
Concerns that cable and phone companies want to charge Google and other new media companies for use of their networks are fueling continued speculation that the search giant is looking to build its own Internet.
A report in The Times of London this past Friday cites unnamed sources who claim Google is developing a network of its own that would allow the company to bypass the existing Internet.
Under the plan, people would be able to connect to the Google-owned network with a cheap PC that retails for less than $100, the paper reported.
Read the whole article here.
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/february2006/070206own_internet.htm
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Thu Feb 9th, 2006 03:00 pm |
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CONCERN: GOP Rep. Curt Weldon (l.) and Democrat Sen.
Russell Feingold want details on federal data-mining.
AP/FILE
US plans massive data sweep
Little-known data-collection system could troll news, blogs, even e-mails. Will it go too far?
By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity. The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy.
"We don't realize that, as we live our lives and make little choices, like buying groceries, buying on Amazon, Googling, we're leaving traces everywhere," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We have an attitude that no one will connect all those dots. But these programs are about connecting those dots - analyzing and aggregating them - in a way that we haven't thought about. It's one of the underlying fundamental issues we have yet to come to grips with."
The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old "Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment" portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding this year.
DHS officials are circumspect when talking about ADVISE. "I've heard of it," says Peter Sand, director of privacy technology. "I don't know the actual status right now. But if it's a system that's been discussed, then it's something we're involved in at some level."
Data-mining is a key technology
A major part of ADVISE involves data-mining - or "dataveillance," as some call it. It means sifting through data to look for patterns. If a supermarket finds that customers who buy cider also tend to buy fresh-baked bread, it might group the two together. To prevent fraud, credit-card issuers use data-mining to look for patterns of suspicious activity.
What sets ADVISE apart is its scope. It would collect a vast array of corporate and public online information - from financial records to CNN news stories - and cross-reference it against US intelligence and law-enforcement records. The system would then store it as "entities" - linked data about people, places, things, organizations, and events, according to a report summarizing a 2004 DHS conference in Alexandria, Va. The storage requirements alone are huge - enough to retain information about 1 quadrillion entities, the report estimated. If each entity were a penny, they would collectively form a cube a half-mile high - roughly double the height of the Empire State Building.
But ADVISE and related DHS technologies aim to do much more, according to Joseph Kielman, manager of the TVTA portfolio. The key is not merely to identify terrorists, or sift for key words, but to identify critical patterns in data that illumine their motives and intentions, he wrote in a presentation at a November conference in Richland, Wash.
For example: Is a burst of Internet traffic between a few people the plotting of terrorists, or just bloggers arguing? ADVISE algorithms would try to determine that before flagging the data pattern for a human analyst's review.
At least a few pieces of ADVISE are already operational. Consider Starlight, which along with other "visualization" software tools can give human analysts a graphical view of data. Viewing data in this way could reveal patterns not obvious in text or number form. Understanding the relationships among people, organizations, places, and things - using social-behavior analysis and other techniques - is essential to going beyond mere data-mining to comprehensive "knowledge discovery in databases," Dr. Kielman wrote in his November report. He declined to be interviewed for this article.
One data program has foiled terrorists
Starlight has already helped foil some terror plots, says Jim Thomas, one of its developers and director of the government's new National Visualization Analytics Center in Richland, Wash. He can't elaborate because the cases are classified, he adds. But "there's no question that the technology we've invented here at the lab has been used to protect our freedoms - and that's pretty cool."
As envisioned, ADVISE and its analytical tools would be used by other agencies to look for terrorists. "All federal, state, local and private-sector security entities will be able to share and collaborate in real time with distributed data warehouses that will provide full support for analysis and action" for the ADVISE system, says the 2004 workshop report.
Some antiterror efforts die - others just change names
Defense Department
November 2002 - The New York Times identifies a counterterrorism program called Total Information Awareness.
September 2003 - After terminating TIA on privacy grounds, Congress shuts down its successor, Terrorism Information Awareness, for the same reasons.
Department of Homeland Security
February 2003 - The department's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announces it's replacing its 1990s-era Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS I).
July 2004 - TSA cancels CAPPS II because of privacy concerns.
August 2004 - TSA says it will begin testing a similar system - Secure Flight - with built-in privacy features.
July 2005 - Government auditors charge that Secure Flight is violating privacy laws by holding information on 43,000 people not suspected of terrorism.
A program in the shadows
Yet the scope of ADVISE - its stage of development, cost, and most other details - is so obscure that critics say it poses a major privacy challenge.
"We just don't know enough about this technology, how it works, or what it is used for," says Marcia Hofmann of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "It matters to a lot of people that these programs and software exist. We don't really know to what extent the government is mining personal data."
Even congressmen with direct oversight of DHS, who favor data mining, say they don't know enough about the program.
"I am not fully briefed on ADVISE," wrote Rep. Curt Weldon (R) of Pennsylvania, vice chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, in an e-mail. "I'll get briefed this week."
Privacy concerns have torpedoed federal data-mining efforts in the past. In 2002, news reports revealed that the Defense Department was working on Total Information Awareness, a project aimed at collecting and sifting vast amounts of personal and government data for clues to terrorism. An uproar caused Congress to cancel the TIA program a year later.
Echoes of a past controversial plan
ADVISE "looks very much like TIA," Mr. Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes in an e-mail. "There's the same emphasis on broad collection and pattern analysis."
But Mr. Sand, the DHS official, emphasizes that privacy protection would be built-in. "Before a system leaves the department there's been a privacy review.... That's our focus."
Some computer scientists support the concepts behind ADVISE.
"This sort of technology does protect against a real threat," says Jeffrey Ullman, professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford University. "If a computer suspects me of being a terrorist, but just says maybe an analyst should look at it ... well, that's no big deal. This is the type of thing we need to be willing to do, to give up a certain amount of privacy."
Others are less sure.
"It isn't a bad idea, but you have to do it in a way that demonstrates its utility - and with provable privacy protection," says Latanya Sweeney, founder of the Data Privacy Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. But since speaking on privacy at the 2004 DHS workshop, she now doubts the department is building privacy into ADVISE. "At this point, ADVISE has no funding for privacy technology."
She cites a recent request for proposal by the Office of Naval Research on behalf of DHS. Although it doesn't mention ADVISE by name, the proposal outlines data-technology research that meshes closely with technology cited in ADVISE documents.
Neither the proposal - nor any other she has seen - provides any funding for provable privacy technology, she adds.
Some in Congress push for more oversight of federal data-mining Amid the furor over electronic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, Congress may be poised to expand its scrutiny of government efforts to "mine" public data for hints of terrorist activity.
"One element of the NSA's domestic spying program that has gotten too little attention is the government's reportedly widespread use of data-mining technology to analyze the communications of ordinary Americans," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D) of Wisconsin in a Jan. 23 statement.
Senator Feingold is among a handful of congressmen who have in the past sponsored legislation - unsuccessfully - to require federal agencies to report on data-mining programs and how they maintain privacy.
Without oversight and accountability, critics say, even well-intentioned counterterrorism programs could experience mission creep, having their purview expanded to include non- terrorists - or even political opponents or groups. "The development of this type of data-mining technology has serious implications for the future of personal privacy," says Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists.
Even congressional supporters of the effort want more information about data-mining efforts.
"There has to be more and better congressional oversight," says Rep. Curt Weldon (R) of Pennsylvania and vice chairman of the House committee overseeing the Department of Homeland Security. "But there can't be oversight till Congress understands what data-mining is. There needs to be a broad look at this because they [intelligence agencies] are obviously seeing the value of this."
Data-mining - the systematic, often automated gleaning of insights from databases - is seen "increasingly as a useful tool" to help detect terrorist threats, the General Accountability Office reported in 2004. Of the nearly 200 federal data-mining efforts the GAO counted, at least 14 were acknowledged to focus on counterterrorism.
While privacy laws do place some restriction on government use of private data - such as medical records - they don't prevent intelligence agencies from buying information from commercial data collectors. Congress has done little so far to regulate the practice or even require basic notification from agencies, privacy experts say.
Indeed, even data that look anonymous aren't necessarily so. For example: With name and Social Security number stripped from their files, 87 percent of Americans can be identified simply by knowing their date of birth, gender, and five-digit Zip code, according to research by Latanya Sweeney, a data-privacy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.
In a separate 2004 report to Congress, the GAO cited eight issues that need to be addressed to provide adequate privacy barriers amid federal data-mining. Top among them was establishing oversight boards for such programs.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0209/p01s02-uspo.html?s=hns
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Mon Feb 13th, 2006 04:29 pm |
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Google Copies Your Hard Drive -
Government Smiles in Anticipation
eff.org | February 13 2006
Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop
San Francisco - Google today announced a new "feature" of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature will store copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google's own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user's computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password.
"Coming on the heels of serious consumer concern about government snooping into Google's search logs, it's shocking that Google expects its users to now trust it with the contents of their personal computers," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "If you use the Search Across Computers feature and don't configure Google Desktop very carefully—and most people won't—Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index.
The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn't even be notified in time to challenge it. Other litigants—your spouse, your business partners or rivals, whoever—could also try to cut out the middleman (you) and subpoena Google for your files."
The privacy problem arises because the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986, or ECPA, gives only limited privacy protection to emails and other files that are stored with online service providers—much less privacy than the legal protections for the same information when it's on your computer at home. And even that lower level of legal protection could disappear if Google uses your data for marketing purposes. Google says it is not yet scanning the files it copies from your hard drive in order to serve targeted advertising, but it hasn't ruled out the possibility, and Google's current privacy policy appears to allow it.
"This Google product highlights a key privacy problem in the digital age," said Cindy Cohn, EFF's Legal Director. "Many Internet innovations involve storing personal files on a service provider's computer, but under outdated laws, consumers who want to use these new technologies have to surrender their privacy rights. If Google wants consumers to trust it to store copies of personal computer files, emails, search histories and chat logs, and still 'not be evil,' it should stand with EFF and demand that Congress update the privacy laws to better reflect life in the wired world."
http://www.infowars.com/articles/bb/google_copies_your_hd.htm
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Tue Feb 14th, 2006 04:13 pm |
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 The Pentagon's War on the Internet
Mike Whitney | February 14 2006
The Pentagon has developed a comprehensive strategy for taking over the internet and controlling the free flow of information. The plan appears in a recently declassified document, The Information Operations Roadmap, which was provided under the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) and revealed in an article by the BBC.
The Pentagon sees the internet in terms of a military adversary that poses a vital threat to its stated mission of global domination. This explains the confrontational language in the document which speaks of fighting the net; implying that the internet is the equivalent of an enemy weapons system."
The Defense Dept. places a high-value on controlling information. The new program illustrates their determination to establish the parameters of free speech.
The Pentagon sees information as essential in manipulating public perceptions and, thus, a crucial tool in eliciting support for unpopular policies. The recent revelations of the military placing propaganda in the foreign press demonstrate the importance that is given to co-opting public opinion.
Information-warfare is used to create an impenetrable cloud around the activities of government so that decisions can be made without dissent. The smokescreen of deception that encompasses the Bush administration has less to do with prevaricating politicians than it does with a clearly articulated policy of obfuscation. �The Information Operations Roadmap� is solely intended to undermine the principle of an informed citizenry.
The Pentagon�s focus on the internet tells us a great deal about the mainstream media and its connection to the political establishment.
Why, for example, would the Pentagon see the internet as a greater threat than the mainstream media, where an estimated 75% of Americans get their news?
The reason is clear; because the MSM is already a fully-integrated part of the corporate-system providing a 24 hour per day streaming of business-friendly news. Today�s MSM operates as a de-facto franchise of the Pentagon, a reliable and sophisticated propagandist for Washington's wars of aggression and political subterfuge.
The internet, on the other hand, is the last bastion of American democracy; a virtual world where reliable information moves instantly from person to person without passing through the corporate filter. Online visitors can get a clear picture of their governments' depredations with a click of the mouse. This is the liberalization of the news, an open source of mind-expanding information that elevates citizen awareness of complex issues and threatens the status quo.
The Pentagon program is just one facet of a broader culture of deception; a pervasive ethos of dishonesty that envelopes all aspects of the Bush White House. The 'Strategic Intelligence' Dept is a division of the Defense establishment that is entirely devoted to concealing, distorting, omitting and manipulating the truth.
In what way is 'strategic intelligence' different from plain intelligence?
It is information that is shaped in a way that meets the needs of a particular group. In other words, it is not the truth at all, but a fabrication, a fiction, a lie.
Strategic intelligence is an oxymoron; a tidy bit of Orwellian doublespeak that reflects the deeply rooted cynicism of its authors.
The internet is a logical target for the Pentagon's electronic warfare. Already the Downing Street memos, Bush�s bombing-threats against Al Jazeera, the fraudulent 2004 elections, and the leveling of Falluja, have disrupted the smooth execution of Bush�s wars. It is understandable that Rumsfeld and Co. would seek to transform this potential enemy into an ally, much as it has done with the MSM.
The Pentagon's plans for engaging in virtual warfare are impressive. As BBC notes: The operations described in the document include a surprising range of military activities: public affairs officers who brief journalists, psychological operations troops who try to manipulate the thoughts and beliefs of an enemy, computer network attack specialists who seek to destroy enemy networks.� (BBC)
The enemy, of course, is you, dear reader, or anyone who refuses to accept their role as a witless-cog in new world order. Seizing the internet is a prudent way of controlling every piece of information that one experiences from cradle to grave; all necessary for an orderly police-state.
The Information Operations Roadmap (IOR) recommends that psychological operations (Psyops) �should consider a range of technologies to disseminate propaganda in enemy territory: unmanned aerial vehicles, "miniaturized, scatterable public address systems", wireless devices, cellular phones and the internet.No idea is too costly or too far-fetched that it escapes the serious consideration of the Pentagon chieftains.
The War Dept. is planning to insert itself into every area of the internet from blogs to chat rooms, from leftist web sites to editorial commentary. The objective is to challenge any tidbit of information that appears on the web that may counter the official narrative; the fairytale of benign American intervention to promote democracy and human rights across the planet.
The IOR aspires to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum" and develop the capability to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum". (BBC)
Full spectrum dominance.
The ultimate goal of the Pentagon is to create an internet-paradigm that corresponds to the corporate mainstream model, devoid of imagination or divergent points of view. They envision an internet that is increasingly restricted by the gluttonous influence of industry and its vast tapestry of lies.
The internet is the modern-day marketplace of ideas, an invaluable resource for human curiosity and organized resistance. It provides a direct link between the explosive power of ideas and engaged citizen involvement. (aka; participatory democracy)
The Pentagon is laying the groundwork for privatizing the internet so the information-revolution can be transformed into an information-tyranny, extending to all areas of communications and serving the exclusive interests of a few well-heeled American plutocrats.
--------------------------------------------------- http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/february2006/140206binternet.htm
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Wed Feb 15th, 2006 02:08 pm |
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Yahoo calls for policy on Web censorship
Portal -- under fire for helping China -- preps for hearing
Verne Kopytoff / SF Chronicle | February 14 2006
Washington -- Yahoo Inc. responded to the firestorm of criticism it's endured after helping China's government limit free speech by releasing a statement Monday that described the Web portal's belief in openness and the need for an industrywide policy dealing with repressive regimes.
The Sunnyvale company's comments come as it and other major technology companies, including Google, Cisco Systems and Microsoft, prepare to testify before Congress about doing business in China.
At a hearing Wednesday, members of two House international relations subcommittees are expected to grill the companies about censoring search results and selling equipment used by the Beijing government to filter Web sites it deems subversive.
In recent months, Yahoo and Google have both censored search results to please the Chinese government, excluding searches for sites that dealt with topics such as democracy or the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Yahoo also has turned over e-mail records to the Chinese government that has led to the imprisonment of two dissidents, according to human rights groups.
On Monday, Yahoo called for Internet companies, governments and other organizations to collaborate on crafting policies for nations where the Internet is tightly controlled.
The company also asked them to promote free speech and expression in such countries, without saying exactly how.
"We intend to be a leader in this dialogue and hope our peers in the communications, media and Internet will join us," said Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako.
Yahoo said it was "deeply concerned by efforts of governments to restrict and control open access to information and communication." But the company also asserted that its continued presence is a powerful force in promoting openness and reform.
For the first time Yahoo said that it supports transparency about the restriction of online information, potentially setting the stage for the company to disclose when it excludes search results to Chinese users. However, Osako said any decision to do so would be up to the Chinese company that owns the majority of the site, Alibaba.
Until now, Yahoo has largely complied with China's laws and has avoided publicly criticizing them.
Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, the ranking minority member of the House International Relations Committee, described Yahoo's comments Monday as inadequate.
"A statement of principles alone will not suffice; a company must have meaningful principles and act on them," he said in a statement. "Yahoo is not above betraying its clients to police state thugs working under so-called 'applicable laws.' "
Yahoo's comments largely echo those made by Andrew McLaughlin, Google's senior policy counsel, in a statement to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus earlier this month.
At the time, he voiced a willingness to work with other Internet companies on voluntary policies for doing business in China and the need for the U.S. government to hold discussions on the matter with governments of other nations.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/february2006/140206bYahoo.htm
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____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Sun Feb 19th, 2006 05:12 am |
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Google blasts President Bush
Associated Press | February 18 2006
Google Inc. on Friday criticized the Bush administration's demand to examine millions of its users' Internet search requests as a misguided fishing expedition that threatens to ruin the company's credibility and reveal its closely guarded secrets.
The company delivered its indignant critique in a 25-page brief that marked its initial legal response to the US Justice Department's attempt to force the online search engine leader to comply with a 6-month-old subpoena.
The Justice Department has until Feb. 24 to respond to the papers that Google filed Friday. A hearing for oral arguments is scheduled March 13 before US District Judge James Ware in San Jose, California.
The case has attracted widespread attention because the Justice Department's demand to peek under the hood of the Internet's most popular search engine has underscored the potential for online databases becoming tools for government surveillance.
Hoping to revive an online child protection law that has been blocked by the US Supreme Court, the Justice Department wants a random list of the search requests made by the millions of people who visit Google during any week.
The government believes the search requests will help prove that Internet filters aren't strong enough to prevent children from accessing online pornography and other potentially offensive Websites.
Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Inc.'s MSN and Time Warner Inc.'s American Online already have provided some of the search engine information sought by the Justice Department. All three companies say they complied without relinquishing their users' private information.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/february2006/180206google.htm
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Fri Feb 24th, 2006 03:46 pm |
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Google Imposes Worldwide Ban On China Critical Website
Space War accuses company of selling out to "boys from Beijing"
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | February 24 2006
For the first time in what some fear will signal a growing trend, Google Inc. has banned and removed a mainstream news website from all its worldwide search engines, seemingly due to the website's reports on China's geopolitical affairs and military technology.
Google came under fire last month for agreeing to install government search filters on its Chinese based search engine. The company that was founded on the motto "don't be evil," claimed that some censorship was acceptable because in the long term the Internet would be opened up to a wider audience and freedom of speech would expand.
That excuse can today be put to bed because Google has banned its users inside the US and the rest of the world from accessing the Space War website from its search engine.
Space War is a reasonably tame mainstream website that focuses on geopolitical affairs and satellite and military technology advancements. It is based in Australia and carries articles from AFP and United Press International.
In a statement posted on its website today, the President and Publisher of Space.TV Corporation Simon Mansfield released the following comments,
"Google Inc. has banned SPACEWAR.COM, a news site covering military space. Reasons for the ban by Google are unclear. The company did not communicate with Space.TV Corp., the owner of SPACEWAR.COM, prior to its action, and Google representatives did not respond to requests for comment."
"Google Inc.'s preferred method of banning a site is to delist its primary domain URL - http://www.spacewar.com - from the Google search index. Google also can reduce a site's page rank, or eliminate it entirely, as it has done to SpaceWar.com."
"Google Inc in the wake of pressure from the Chinese government has begun blocking access to various websites deemed unfriendly to the "Boys From Beijing" (TM)."
"At this stage we have no evidence to suggest this is the reason why Google has banned SPACEWAR.COM. The lack of any forewarning that SPACEWAR.COM was operating in violation of Google's increasingly strict search engine compliance requirements, however, leads us to suspect the ban is politically motivated."
"Google Inc.'s corporate mantra is "Do No Evil." Obviously, this is not true given Google's willingness to submit to the censorship requirements of the Chinese government."
It is important to stress that Space War is not even outright hostile to the Chinese government, it simply reports on publicly available information about its military progression and relations with other countries.
This sets the precedent for Google to ban any website that is even mildly critical of the Communist dictatorship in China. Much to our surprise, the website you are reading now is still accessible in most areas of China but we don't expect it to remain that way for very much longer.
The Chinese government is held aloft by the UN and others as the model of the New World Order. The country is no less totalitarian than it was when the PLA massacred as many as 2600 protesters and injured 10,000 more at Tiananmen Square on June 4th 1989.
Political dissidents and peaceful practitioners of the Falun Gong religion and even the lawyers who defend them are subject to mobile execution vans or if they're lucky, hauled off to permanent detention camps.
US companies like Microsoft and Yahoo have been complicit in helping the Chinese government locate and arrest Chinese bloggers who post even mild criticism of the government.
Space War is inviting its readers to complain to their political representative. We urge you to support them by following this link and ensuring that the practice of worldwide censorship of websites critical of the ChiComs ends now.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/february2006/240206worldwideban.htm
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Sat Feb 25th, 2006 06:30 pm |
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Data mining program continues after lawmakers order it closed
Raw Story | February 25 2006
A controversial intelligence data mining program, which was closed by lawmakers over privacy concerns two years ago, has continued to receive funding and remained in operation under different code names in different agencies, according to today's National Journal.
Excerpts from the Journal's article follow:
Research under the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness program -- which developed technologies to predict terrorist attacks by mining government databases and the personal records of people in the United States -- was moved from the Pentagon's research-and-development agency to another group, which builds technologies primarily for the National Security Agency, according to documents obtained by National Journal and to intelligence sources familiar with the move.
The names of key projects were changed, apparently to conceal their identities, but their funding remained intact, often under the same contracts.
Two of the most important components of the TIA program were moved to the Advanced Research and Development Activity, housed at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., documents and sources confirm. One piece was the Information Awareness Prototype System, the core architecture that tied together numerous information extraction, analysis, and dissemination tools developed under TIA. The prototype system included privacy-protection technologies that may have been discontinued or scaled back following the move to ARDA. ...
Another key TIA project that moved to ARDA was Genoa II, which focused on building information technologies to help analysts and policy makers anticipate and pre-empt terrorist attacks. Genoa II was renamed Topsail when it moved to ARDA, intelligence sources confirmed. (The name continues the program's nautical nomenclature; "genoa" is a synonym for the headsail of a ship.)
It is unclear when funding for Topsail was terminated. But earlier this month, at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, one of TIA's strongest critics questioned whether intelligence officials knew that some of its programs had been moved to other agencies. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and FBI Director Robert Mueller whether it was
"correct that when [TIA] was closed, that several ... projects were moved to various intelligence agencies.... I and others on this panel led the effort to close [TIA]; we want to know if Mr. Poindexter's programs are going on somewhere else."
For the full story, including ties to Iran-Contra's John Poindexter, go here.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/february2006/250206mining.htm
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Thu Mar 2nd, 2006 03:45 am |
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Microsoft says better than Google soon
By David Lawsky
PARIS (Reuters) - Microsoft will introduce a search engine better than Google in six months in the United States and Britain followed by Europe, its European president said on Wednesday.
"What we're saying is that in six months' time we'll be more relevant in the U.S. market place than Google," said Neil Holloway, Microsoft president for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
"The quality of our search and the relevance of our search from a solution perspective to the consumer will be more relevant," he told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit.
But being good is not enough to win the hearts and minds of consumers already dedicated to another standard.
U.S. courts and the European Commission found Microsoft countered that problem by trying to kill off Netscape's browser and RealNetworks audiovisual software by bundling its competing code into Windows, violating antitrust laws.
But bundling would find little purchase against Google because it lives insulated from Microsoft on the Web, unlike other applications that were easy game for the software giant as they perched directly on Windows.
Holloway said that the company has no plans to integrate its search engine into Vista, the new Microsoft Windows operating system set to replace Windows XP later this year or early next year
TWICE AS GOOD
"Should we add a Google-like search engine but twice as good hard-core into Windows? Guess what. If we did that, I don't think a company called Google would be very happy," he said.
"You've also got to a step back and say where do you integrate," he said.
Microsoft will put its search engine into its widely used communications tools Windows Messenger and Hotmail. Continued ...
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2006
-03-01T211748Z_01_L01660811_RTRUKOC_0_US-SUMMIT-MICROSFT-GOOGLE.xml&rpc=22
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Thu Mar 9th, 2006 12:13 pm |
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Privacy fear as Google plans 'super database'
JOHN INNES / Scotsman | March 8 2006
GOOGLE, the internet giant, is planning a massive online facility that could store copies of users' hard drives - a move set to spark alarm among civil liberties campaigners.
Plans for the "GDrive", previously the subject of rumour among computer experts, were revealed accidentally after notes in a slideshow were wrongly published on Google's site.
The device would create a mirror image of data stored on consumers' computer hard drives, letting users search data stored on other computers via Google accounts.
While offering more convenient access to data, the service will stoke debate about the dangers of storing so much personal data on Google systems. Google recently squared up against the United States Justice Department, which has subpoenaed a limited set of data on Google search habits, drawing an outcry from privacy advocates.
In the presentation notes, the chief executive, Eric Schmidt, made a cryptic comment that one goal of Google was to "store 100 per cent" of consumer information".
A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on any specific service, but confirmed that the presentation containing the notes had been mistakenly released on the internet. "We deleted the slide notes because they were not intended for publication," she said.
"We are constantly working on ways to enhance our products and services for users, but have nothing to announce at this time."
The new service could save computer users from loss of data by keeping a "golden copy" on Google's centralised computers. However, the plan could be thwarted by privacy concerns.
Recently, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocate, issued a similarly stern warning to consumers to not use such facilities because it would reduce their level of privacy protection.
Google has been at the centre of privacy row in the United States. Last August, Google rejected US government efforts to access its search logs to prop up a contested 1998 law designed to protect minors from objectionable material on the internet.
Microsoft, Yahoo, and America Online have all since admitted that they have provided the government with some of that data from their logs.
The revelations triggered a privacy rights row in Washington that has placed the administration of the president, George Bush, on the defensive and has sparked at least two investigations in Congress.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/march2006/080306Google.htm
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____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
|
Posted: Mon Mar 13th, 2006 04:45 pm |
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Bill Clinton helps launch search engine
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6666890/
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
|
civilian
|
Posted: Thu Mar 16th, 2006 07:43 pm |
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MySpace Is The Trojan Horse Of Internet Censorship
Media elite's last gasp effort to save crumbling empire
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | March 16 2006
MySpace isn't cool, it isn't hip and it isn't trendy. It represents a cyber trojan horse and the media elite's last gasp effort to reclaim control of the Internet and sink it with a stranglehold of regulation, control and censorship.
Since Rupert Murdoch's $580 Million acquisition of MySpace in July 2005, it has come from total obscurity to now being the 8th most visited website in the world, receiving half as many page hits as Google, despite the fact that on first appearance it looks like a 5-year-old's picture scrap and scribble book.
MySpace is the new mobile phone. If you don't have a MySpace account then you belong to some kind of culturally shunned underclass.
What most of the trendy wendy's remain blissfully unaware of is the fact that MySpace is Rupert Murdoch's battle axe for shaping a future Internet environment whereby electronic dissent, whether it be against corporations or government, will not tolerated and freedom of e-speech will cease to exist.
MySpace has been caught shutting down blogs critical of itself and other Murdoch owned companies. They even had the audacity to censor links to completely different websites when clicking through for MySpace. When 600 MySpace users complained, MySpace deleted the blog forum that the complaints were posted on. Taking their inspiration from Communist China, MySpace regularly uses blanket censorship to block out words like 'God'.
Earlier this week Rupert Murdoch sounded the death knell for conventional forms of media in stating that the media elite were losing their monopoly to the rapid and free spread of new communication technologies. Murdoch stressed the need to regain control of these outlets in order to prevent the establishment media empire from crumbling.
MySpace is Rupert Murdoch's trojan horse for destroying free speech on the Internet. It is a foundational keystone of the first wave of the state's backlash to the damage that a free and open Internet has done to their organs of propaganda. By firstly making it cool, trendy and culturally elite for millions to flock to establishment controlled Internet backbones like MySpace, Murdoch is preparing the groundwork for the day when it will stop being voluntary and become mandatory to use government and corporate monopoly controlled Internet hubs.
The end game is a system similar to or worse than China, whereby no websites even mildly critical of the government will be authorized.
The Pentagon admitted that they would engage in psychological warfare and cyber attacks on 'enemy' Internet websites in an attempt to shut them down. The fact that the NSA surveillance program spied on 5,000 Americans tells us that the enemy is the alternative media and that it will be targeted for elimination. Google has been ordered to turn over information about its users by a judge to the US government.
The second wave of destroying freedom of speech online will simply attempt to price people out of using the conventional Internet and force people over to Internet 2, a state regulated hub where permission will need to be obtained directly from an FCC or government bureau to set up a website.
The original Internet will then be turned into a mass surveillance database and marketing tool. The Nation magazine reported, "Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out."
The original Internet will deliberately be subject to crash upon crash until it becomes a useless carcass of overpriced trash and its reputation will be defiled by the TV and media barons cashing in on the perfectly streamlined Internet 2, the free for all network that just requires you to thumbscan in order to log on! Those with a security grading below yellow on their national ID card will unfortunately be refused access. Websites that carry hate speech (ones that talk about government corruption) will be censored for the betterment of society.
For the aspiring dictator, the Internet is a dangerous tool that has been seized by the enemy. We have come a long way since 1969, when the ARPANET was created solely for US government use. The Internet is freedom's best friend and the bane of control freaks. Its eradication is one of the short term goals of those that seek to centralize power and subjugate the world under a global surveillance panopticon prison.
Rupert Murdoch's MySpace and its ceaseless promotion by the establishment media as the best thing since sliced bread is part of this movement. In saying all this we do encourage everyone to set up a MySpace account, but only if you're going to use it to bash MySpace, Rupert Murdoch and copy and paste this article right at the top of the page! See how long it is before your account is terminated.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/march2006/160306myspace.htm
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
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Posted: Sun Mar 19th, 2006 01:27 pm |
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Google ordered to give Web sites
Reuters | March 18 2006
A federal judge on Friday denied a request by the U.S. Justice Department for specific terms customers used to search Google Inc.'s Web database but will require Google to turn over 50,000 Web addresses.
In a widely anticipated, 21-page ruling that has implications for the privacy of Internet users, Judge James Ware of the U.S. District for the Northern District of California said privacy considerations led him to deny the government demand in part.
"To the extent the motion seeks an order compelling Google to disclose search queries of its users the motion is denied," Ware wrote.
He ruled that the 50,000 Web addresses, or Universal Resource Locators (URLs), was a relevant request by the government for use in a statistical study it is doing to defend the constitutionality of a federal online child antipornography law that is at issue in a separate case, ACLU v. Gonzales.
"The expectation of privacy by some Google users may not be reasonable, but may nonetheless have an appreciable impact on the way in which Google is perceived, and consequently the frequency with which users use Google," Ware said.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/march2006/180306_b_Google.htm
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____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
|
Posted: Tue Mar 21st, 2006 01:29 am |
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Google beats off the government
Nick Farrell / Inquirer | March 20 2006
SEARCH outfit Google has managed to tell the US government to go forth and multiply over its demands that it hand over details of keywords that its punters choose to search.
US Justice Department wanted the data so it could back a Bush administration initiative to defend a federal law created to shield children from online pornography.
Judge James Ware did not force the Justice Department to go away empty handed. He did order Google to hand over the addresses of 50 thousand Web sites that consumers look for through its search engine. The Justice Department would have to pay for this data and it is not particularly useful.
Google says that it shows that the government did not have unrestricted power when it came to demanding data from Internet companies.
This is of course different from China where Google rolled over to have its tummy tickled by the government by allowing a specially censored version of its search engine to be used.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/march2006/200306Google.htm
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____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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civilian
|
Posted: Tue Mar 21st, 2006 01:54 pm |
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Dell to Double Its Staff in India by 2009
Computer Maker Dell Inc. to Double Number of Employees in India to 20,000 by 2009
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=1745074
____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
|
civilian
|
Posted: Wed Mar 22nd, 2006 10:32 pm |
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AOL's email tax row goes intergalactic
Andrew Orlowski / The Register | March 22 2006
The wide-ranging coalition that objects to a tax on sending email has a new, and unexpected opponent. One that mere earthlings dare engage at their peril.
It's former "Net Queen", space cadet, and Register reader favorite Esther Dyson, whose latest transmission has been captured, decoded and published by the New York Times.
Esther thinks it's a great idea.
Why?
Well, as she explained in the Times on Friday, it unleashes the goodness of market forces. And the doubleplus emergent goodness of Darwinian evolution!
But aren't computer communications system supposed to just work? And why do we, the users, have to pay for the broken protocols? (Even the inventor of the SMTP protocol that's used to send the world's email messages says we need to rip these up and start again.)
Instead, AOL and Yahoo! are endorsing a scheme which guarantees to deliver email to their subscribers only if the senders have paid an intermediary of their choice. Which happens to be GoodMail Systems.
Email sent from the rest of the world, which GoodMail considers "uncertified", must therefore risk running through AOL and Yahoo!'s discrimination process. And as this potential profit center for the two net giants takes off, there's no incentive for either company to deliver the "free email" - and every incentive for them to get the world conditioned to paying for guaranteed delivery.
It's as if the police began charging crime victims for the guarantee that they would log and investigate an incident. Do you think the crime figures would begin to rise or fall with the introduction of such an "innovation"?
Of course the utopian ditz doesn't quite see it this way.
Let Esther herself explain.
"I agree that pretty soon sending most e-mail will cost money [er, what? - ed] but I think that's only right. It costs money to guarantee quality and safety. Moreover, I think the market will work, and that it will not shut out deserving senders, if we only let it work freely."
She doesn't mention what choices face say, the rural poor, who suddenly have a new, US-imposed tax to deal with. When you earn on a dollar a day, paying a cent for send is not a trivial amount. (Let's put it this way, when Esther herself earned $10,000 a day for providing vacuities to ignorant dotcom companies, that would have worked out as $100 an email.) She continues:
"In the long run, recipients will be able to use services like Goodmail to set their own prices for receiving mail."
The goodness spreads.
And in a surreal moment that channels the spirit of Marlene Dietrich, Esther reveals that she has her own tariff:
"In my case," she says, "I'd have a list. I'd charge nothing for people I know, 50 cents for anyone new … and $3 for random advertisers. Ex-boyfriends pay $10."
That can only be interpreted as a cruel sideswipe at Bill Ziff, so we shan't dwell on it.
Resistence is futile!
The coalition, assembled by the EFF, is not impressed with Esther's comments.
"Dyson's acknowledgement undermines AOL's PR scheme for its pay-to- send proposal, which centers on convincing the public that their email tax is 'voluntary' and 'nothing will change' for everyday emailers," it responded in a statement.
Dyson stormed back complaining that she'd been misquoted. She said that most of the money raised by the caper would find its way to recipients.
Now to really interesting part. The amorality of technology enthusiasts has been discussed a plenty, but rarely the deep misanthropy, and anti-democratic instincts. If you've ever doubted the values of these determinists - whose mystical faith in the market is accompanied by magical incantations of Darwin - here it is.
"I find it ironic that many of the very people who want to teach evolution in the schools (a position I agree with it), want to stop it on the Internet," claimed Esther.
"What shocks me most about the opposition to Goodmail is that people who claim to believe in the free and open Internet, with its welcome attitude to innovation, want to shut down an idea. That's wrong."
No, Esther. Not if it's a bad idea.
There are ways citizens can influence that decision choice, rather than leaving it the magic of the market.
"Trying to engage the public about the real consequences of AOL's plan isn't anti progress," responds the EFF's Cindy Cohn, "it's educating the market. And the market should get a chance to debate whether we want top live in a 'pay to send' world or not."
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/march2006/220306AOL.htm
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____________________
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee before his face.
Psalm 67
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