Linked by Howard Fosdick on Thu 17th Nov 2011 08:05 UTC
A New York Times guest editorial titled Stop the Great Firewall of America says "China operates the world's most elaborate and opaque system of Internet censorship. But Congress... is considering misguided legislation that would strengthen China's Great Firewall and even bring major features of it to America." The culprit is the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act. Sounds good until you read that "The bills empower the attorney general to create a blacklist of sites to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial." Rather like the Department of Homeland Security's seizure of websites for copyright violations without the constitutionally-required court orders. If you're not an American citizen, why should you care? Read this Techdirt article telling how the U.S. seized a Spanish domain name that had already been declared legal by the Spanish courts.
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Member since:2008-08-01
>censorship
>democratic countries
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
Member since:2007-03-06
>censorship
>democratic countries
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
>democratic countries
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
While democracy is supposed to imply that all citizens have an equal say in decisions that affect their lives, it has actually come to mean that all you get is to choose a temporary dictator among a subset of candidates sponsored by private interests.
Member since:2005-07-08
Member since:2005-12-31
Member since:2007-03-26
There's also one here in Norway. Granted, it's for "preventing access to child pornography" - it's still a secret blacklist that all ISP needs to implement.
Indeed, and that's just what happened here in the UK. Content holders have successfully forced some ISPs to use their child porn filter to blacklist a usenet search engine.
Member since:2007-09-22
Member since:2010-09-23
Member since:2006-06-04
Member since:2009-06-09
Consider this. All the South Korean websites are monitored by the government's presidential agency. The police agencies and the Supreme Prosecutors' Office can track almost every post you wrote through your Residence Registration Number. They can imprison you with "internet" evidences.
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:35 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/11/13 17:07 UTC
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/10/13 23:13 UTC
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/08/13 14:57 UTC
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/07/13 11:40 UTC
This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/04/13 12:45 UTC
Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
Linked by nfeske on 05/31/13 10:12 UTC
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/29/13 16:59 UTC
At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!More Features »
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Member since:
2009-06-09
There's also the Great Firewall of South Korea, a masterpiece of the conservative government at present. Maybe internet censorship is a growing trend among democratic countries.