Eideard

Har! Even with the typo, it’s funny.

Thanks, Gasparrini

Phil DuBois defended Phil Zimmermann & PGP against the Feds

American citizens can be ordered to decrypt their PGP-scrambled hard drives for police to peruse for incriminating files, a federal judge in Colorado ruled today in what could become a precedent-setting case.

Judge Robert Blackburn ordered a Peyton, Colo., woman to decrypt the hard drive of a Toshiba laptop computer no later than February 21–or face the consequences including contempt of court.

Blackburn, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the Fifth Amendment posed no barrier to his decryption order. The Fifth Amendment says that nobody may be “compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” which has become known as the right to avoid self-incrimination.

“I find and conclude that the Fifth Amendment is not implicated by requiring production of the unencrypted contents of the Toshiba Satellite M305 laptop computer,” Blackburn wrote in a 10-page opinion today. He said the All Writs Act, which dates back to 1789 and has been used to require telephone companies to aid in surveillance, could be invoked in forcing decryption of hard drives as well…

Which is about what I’d expect from a fossil appointed by a tool.

Colorado Springs attorney Phil Dubois, who once represented PGP creator Phil Zimmermann, now finds himself fighting the feds over encryption a second time.

“I hope to get a stay of execution of this order so we can file an appeal to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals,” Ramona Fricosu’s attorney, Phil Dubois, said this afternoon. “I think it’s a matter of national importance. It should not be treated as though it’s just another day in Fourth Amendment litigation.”

Today’s ruling from Blackburn sided with the U.S. Department of Justice [and Homeland Insecurity, the TSA and just about every Brown Shirt in the Kool Aid Party] which argued, as CNET reported last summer, that Americans’ Fifth Amendment right to remain silent doesn’t apply to their encryption passphrases…

The question of whether a criminal defendant can be legally compelled to cough up his encryption passphrase remains an unsettled one, with law review articles for at least the last 15 years arguing the merits of either approach…

Many principled Americans have confronted the threat of contempt of court in the course of defending civil rights and civil liberties hated by the least principled segment of American jurisprudence and politics. Opportunism governs the mindset of small-minded bureaucrats — whether the question is one of war and peace or privacy and testimony.

I don’t expect them to change. I not about to start cooperating, either.

 
Many internet users in the United States have watched with horror as countries like France and Britain have proposed or instituted so-called “three strikes” laws, which cut off internet access to those accused of repeated acts of copyright infringement. Now the U.S. has its own version of this kind of law, and it is arguably much worse: the Stop Online Piracy Act, introduced in the House this week, would give governments and private corporations unprecedented powers to remove websites from the internet on the flimsiest of grounds, and would force internet service providers to play the role of copyright police.

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes in a post on the proposed legislation, the law would not only require ISPs to remove websites from the global network at the request of the government or the courts (by blocking any requests to the central domain-name system that directs internet traffic), but would also be forced to monitor their users’ behavior in order to police acts of copyright infringement. Providers who do not comply with these requests and requirements would be subject to sanctions. And in many cases, legal hearings would not be required…

In addition to using what some are calling the “internet death penalty” of removing infringing websites from the DNS system so they can’t be found, the proposed bill would also allow copyright holders to push for websites and services to be removed from search engine results and to have their supply of advertising cut off — and would require that payment companies like PayPal and ad networks comply with these orders. If you liked what PayPal and others did when they shut off donations to WikiLeaks, you’re going to love the new Stop Online Piracy Act…

The bottom line is that if it passes and becomes law, the new act would give the government and copyright holders a giant stick — if not an automatic weapon — with which to pursue websites and services they believe are infringing on their content. With little or no requirement for a court hearing, they could remove websites from the internet and shut down their ability to be found by search engines or to process payments from users. DMCA takedown notices would effectively be replaced by this nuclear option, and innocent websites would have to fight to prove that they deserved to be restored to the internet — a reversal of the traditional American judicial approach of being assumed innocent until proven guilty — at which point any business they had would be destroyed.

Just as our Congress has become the kind of legislative body that would make any corporation happy and content, this bill would make for the kind of internet that would increase smiles and profits for media conglomerates — regardless of the stifling blanket dropped on the whole Web.

It was bad enough for the University of Illinois when The Chicago Tribune’s 2009 series “Clout Goes to College” exposed the existence of a “clout list” that over five years gave hundreds of well-connected students an edge in admissions, and led to the resignations of the university president, the chancellor of the flagship Urbana-Champaign campus and most of the trustees.

But two years later, the university is still mired in litigation before the federal appeals court in Chicago, fighting the release of more documents the newspaper has asked for, including the names and addresses of the parents on the clout list. The university has turned over about 5,200 pages of documents to the newspaper. But in a separate state court proceeding, The Tribune is seeking the grade point averages and ACT scores of the students accepted from the clout list.

Those requests set off a shootout between the state’s freedom of information law and the federal privacy law for educational records…

Mr. Skinner said the university’s position is that anything anyone sends in about any applicant is a student record protected by the law.

But The Tribune, backed by media groups including The New York Times, argues that the documents are not education records under the federal law, but rather records of questionable conduct, so the public’s right to know should prevail.

“When Governor Blagojevich calls the chancellor and says, ‘Admit this favored person,’ that’s not an admission record kept in someone’s file,” said James Klenk, a lawyer for The Tribune. “That’s something that should be disclosed to the public. We’re investigating public officials in their decision making. Some people were admitted not on their merits, while other people, on the merits, didn’t get those spots, and that’s wrong…”

Parents and university officials who used the clout list to bypass the merit-based application process, the brief said, “cannot now claim any reasonable right to privacy to cover their actions, as it is far outweighed by the newsworthiness of the scandal and the right of the public to hold accountable those responsible for perpetrating a fraud.”

Look at the whole array in the litigation: bureaucrats, lawyers, politicians – and the well-connected parents and students. Decide for yourself what’s really at stake. Privacy or public access to information about people who committed a crime?

Diagram from the patent application

Jeff Bezos is worried about phone safety. Not your safety while you’re distracted by your phone. No, he’s worried about the gadget itself.

The Amazon boss and his colleague, Vice President Gregory M. Hart, filed a patent application to protect their idea of an air bag that inflates around your mobile device if you drop it. Broadly, the duo are seeking to patent the idea of a “system and method for protecting devices from impact damage…”

The idea is to use a device’s built-in gyroscope, camera, or other sensors to determine if the device its moving quickly toward the ground or some other object. If it determines that damaging impact is imminent, it triggers a protection system to absorb the fall…

And the patent filing isn’t just attempting to cover device air bags. Bezos and Hart also envision a “reorientation element” that would turn the device so that it hits the ground on the side of the device where the air bag has been deployed. And it doesn’t have to be an air bag. The filing also contemplates using “a propulsion element, a spring, an impact absorbing structure, and a reinforced edge,” among other protection elements.

Of course, you still could buy a humungous case or just quit dropping the bloody thing. I presume the addition of the air bag also makes it float if you drop your phone into the toilet.

Pawz, one of the latest fashion statements for dogs, are designed to give Fido some serious paw protection. More like a sock than a shoe, they are made from biodegradable natural rubber and fit securely without fasteners or straps. Available in a range of colors and sizes, they promise comfort and safety for a much loved pooch.

Pawz rubber boots are waterproof, washable and reusable, and are reportedly suitable for all types of terrain. A barrier against rough dirt, mud, ice and snow, they also protect against hazards such as chemicals and fire ants. Importantly, the boots do not have any padding inside, giving the dog a sense of security in being able to feel the ground beneath its feet. Made from flexible rubber, they are also said to allow dog paws a full range of motion, for maximum comfort.

I often remark about needing to “put me Wellies on” in response to the level of crap being spread by our world-class politicians.

I guess I should give the furriest members of our family the same protection. Though they rarely wander into the living room to listen to what passes for news on American television.

Rival wine sellers targeting overworked mothers are fighting over use of the word “Mommy” on their wine labels, according to a lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court.

In the suit, filed on Monday, California-based winery Clos Lachance Wines asked the court to declare that its “Mommyjuice” does not violate the trademark of “Mommy’s Time Out,” which is marketed by a New Jersey distributor.

“Mommy is a generic word that they don’t have a monopoly on,” said KC Branch, an attorney who represents Clos Lachance.

The owner of “Mommy’s Time Out” declined to comment on the lawsuit.

To succeed in a trademark violation case, a brand owner must show it is likely that a rival’s mark will create confusion in the minds of consumers.

The front label of Mommyjuice features a drawing of a woman juggling a house, teddy bear and computer. The back label advises moms to “tuck your kids into bed, sit down and have a glass of Mommyjuice. Because you deserve it.” The wine is available in a white Chardonnay and a red mixed blend.

The front label of “Mommy’s Time Out,” an Italian wine sold in red and white, shows an empty chair facing a corner. A wine bottle and glass sit on a table next to the chair…

Mendelson also noted that wines with “fanciful” names have proliferated as marketers try to reach new categories of customers. In recent years, vintners have launched wines like “Fat bastard,” “Cleavage Creek” and a red wine featuring a rooster called “Big Red Pecker.”

Within the confines of market battles, one business competing in dead earnest against another – restricting yourself to the ground rules of lawyers and other idiots is a game for automatons, pedants and mutant religions.

One year ago the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon erupted in a torrent of oil, gas, drilling mud, and flames, claiming the lives of 11 men and setting off an 87-day environmental nightmare. The explosion also triggered an equally ferocious barrage of rhetoric in the nation’s capital. A frantic burst of congressional hearings emerged as the immediate oversight response. As usual, they were full of sound and fury—sadly but not surprisingly—signifying nothing.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that 101 oil-spill-related bills were introduced in the 111th Congress, which came to a close in 2010. Exactly zero were enacted into law. Another 15 have been introduced so far this year—none of which has been acted upon by its committee of jurisdiction.

This is an abject failure on the part of the legislative branch when obvious fixes remain on the table. Mandated liability limits for economic damages incurred by local residents are shamefully low and no mechanism is in place to ensure any fines BP or other responsible parties are forced to pay would actually be returned to a region still devastated by the companies’ negligence…

Now, with the 112th Congress…House Republicans have stomped on the gas pedal. The first set of oil-related bills marked up by the now Republican-controlled House Committee on Energy and Natural Resources were three introduced by that body’s chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA). Rep. Hastings’s bills would dramatically accelerate the permitting process in the Gulf of Mexico and require the secretary of the interior to open portions of the heretofore untouched outer continental shelf in the Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific Oceans to more drilling…

Read the rest of this entry »

European MPs have been accused of putting the rights of child pornographers ahead of abused children after it emerged that they are to water down new laws, backed by the UK government, for curbing the dissemination of child abuse images.

The European parliament’s civil liberties, justice and home affairs committee (LIBE) will meet in Strasbourg tomorrow, when it is expected to approve a controversial measure that would compel EU member states to inform publishers of child pornography that their images are to be deleted from the internet or blocked. Child pornographers will also have to be informed of their right to appeal against any removal or blocking. The measure would make the UK’s system for blocking and removing child pornography without informing the publisher illegal.

“MEPs seem more concerned with the rights of child pornographers than they do with the rights of children who have been sexually abused to make their foul, illegal images,” said John Carr, an adviser to the UK government on child internet safety and the secretary of the Children’s Charities Coalition on Internet Safety…

The Council of Ministers agreed tough new measures approving the blocking and deletion of child pornography images shortly before Christmas. But LIBE intends to reject them after civil rights campaigners mounted a lobbying campaign, warning that they were a form of internet censorship.

I believe I understand all the cross-currents dealing with civil rights and civi liberties in Europe – and how they reflect the experiences of societies and nations with the fight against fascism and its precursors. That is why Germany, for example, supports their national right to ban traffic in Nazi memorabilia and any other explicit communication glorifying the Nazi past. There are reflections of the same experience in laws throughout Europe protecting privacy – after the history of state snooping leading to WW2 and episodes within the Cold War. Both sides of the Iron Curtain.

I honestly don’t understand what that has to do with the exploitation of children. Or why some feel the essential principles protecting privacy and free speech need to be extended to acts declared illegal. It’s why we differentiate in my neck of the prairie between free speech – particularly political speech – and inciting to riot. This all seems to reinforce the growing belief that the EU is adopting a culture of lawmaking more concerned with being a nanny to socially-borderline profiteers than to concentrating on building a better life for all.

A 30-year old Michigan man shot himself Monday morning while napping in his car parked on the Ohio Turnpike.

Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers are investigating the 1:38 a.m. shooting, but troopers said it appears Mahmoud Ajaj of Dearborn, Mich., accidentally shot himself after falling asleep…

In the car with Ajaj was his wife and two children, ages 3 years old and 7 months old. After parking on the side of the highway, Ajaj took out a gun that was in his car’s glovebox, troopers said.

“He said it was for protection in case someone tried to rob them,” Blake said.

Ajaj held the gun on his chest, the barrel pointing toward the driver’s-side door. As he drifted off to sleep, he inadvertently squeezed the trigger…

The bullet entered Ajaj’s upper left thigh and exited his lower thigh. He then drove to a nearby exit as his wife called 911…

By late Monday he had already been treated and released from the hospital. Charges have not been filed, and the investigation is ongoing, troopers said.

Dude could have qualified for a Darwin Award if he got the femoral artery.