The New York Times is running an opinion piece which lambasts US Internet companies for cooperating with China and other repressive governments. The failure of and lack of ISP support for bills that undermine the, "just following orders" excuse is a new and interesting charge.

Yahoo's collaboration is appalling, and Yahoo is not the only American company helping the Chinese government repress its people. Microsoft shut down a blogger at Beijing`s request. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft censor searches in China. Cisco Systems provided hardware used by Beijing to censor and monitor the Internet.

Last January, Representative Christopher Smith of New Jersey reintroduced the Global Online Freedom Act in the House. It would fine American companies that hand over information about their customers to foreign governments that suppress online dissent. The bill would at least give American companies a solid reason to decline requests for data, but the big Internet companies do not support it. That shows how much they care about the power of information to liberate the world.

This is also a swipe against the same practices committed in the US.

How would you feel if the local Santa talked to your 11 year old about oral sex and drugs instead of Christmas goodies? Microsoft's Santa AI seems to be doing just that!

El Reg says: Eat it. Santa says: You want me to eat what?!? It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else...

When Santa asks what you want for Christmas, try saying "cake". He'll reply: "You don't need drugs when you're high on life!"

Good thing M$ has parental control protecting innocents from net nasties. These things were not repeated, they were stored. It's amazing the AI would have any output text about risky topics.

Update: M$ Killed Santa. No one embarrasses the soft, no one!

KDE 4.0 is here. The development platform is frozen and the majority of applications for KDE 4.0 are ready for daily use.

The KDE Community is happy to announce the immediate availability of the first release candidate for KDE 4.0. This release candidate marks that the majority of the components of KDE 4.0 are now approaching release quality.

Release Candidate 1 is the first preview of KDE 4.0 which is suitable for general use and discovering the improvements that have taken place all over the KDE codebase. ... the final version of the KDE Development Platform, ... is frozen and is now of release quality. The sourcecode for the KDE Development Platform can be found in the "stable/" subdir on KDE's FTP server and mirrors.

Sweet!

An anonymous animal rights activist, faces jail time if she does not hand over encryption keys to files she claims are not hers. This is the first use of the infamous RIPA laws.

Section Three of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) came into force at the start in October 2007, seven years after the original legislation passed through parliament. Intended primarily to deal with terror suspects, it allows police to demand encryption keys or provide a clear text transcript of encrypted text.

"Now apparently they have found some encrypted files on my computer (which was stolen by police thugs in May this year) which they think they have 'reasonable suspicion' to pry into using the excuse of 'preventing or detecting a crime'," she writes. The woman says that any encrypted data put on the PC must have been put there by somebody else.

I really feel safer with all these great anti-terror laws protecting me from peace protesters and animal rights activists and other political opposition.

Yet another sign of tyranny. Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Phoenix retaliated against a newspaper by demanding the IP addresses of all visitors and then jailed the owners when they published the outrageous subpoena.

The US government has affirmed its longstanding antagonism to employee and citizen privacy in electronic communications. Contrary to rules for snail mail and phone conversation, employers can take what they want, when they want. Government wants the same ability. Their arguments follow a 40 year long chain of faulty reasoning and malicious intent designed to overturn Katz vrs the US.

On October 8, 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati granted the government's request for a full-panel hearing in United States v. Warshak case centering on the right of privacy for stored electronic communications. ... the position that the United States government is taking if accepted, may mean that the government can read anybody's email at any time without a warrant. The most distressing argument the government makes in the Warshak case is that the government need not follow the Fourth Amendment in reading emails sent by or through most commercial ISPs. The terms of service (TOS) of many ISPs permit those ISPs to monitor user activities to prevent fraud, enforce the TOS, or protect the ISP or others, or to comply with legal process. If you use an ISP and the ISP may monitor what you do, then you have waived any and all constitutional privacy rights in any communications or other use of the ISP.

What's needed, of course, is more protection not less. Previous failures do not excuse future violations. Government violation of privacy costs money and spending money that way is outrageous. They should instead spend them money prosecuting companies that violate user privacy or block communications. Half of the government's argument would fall apart if ISPs permitted people to run their own mail servers. The other half falls apart in the face of widespread encryption. All of it is wrong and that should be enough for them to lose, but there's little hope of that.

Save the Internet has asked the FCC to fine Comcast for blocking bittorrent traffic.

In filing a "Petition for Declaratory Ruling" with the FCC, these SaveTheInterneters have asked the feds to acknowledge that BitTorrent bagging violates their "Internet Policy Statement"

"Comcast, the nations number two provider of high-speed Internet access, is blatantly violating the FCCs Internet Policy Statement by degrading a range of peer-to-peer applications," the complaint reads. "It falsely denied degrading peer-to-peer applications and now continues to degrade applications without informing users and while advertising access to the 'internet.' The FCC should immediately enjoin this discrimination and impose forfeitures on Comcast." The complaint also asks the FCC to adopt umbrella fines for ISPs that exhibit Comcast-like behavior.

Companies taking advantage of lax enforcement have stirred up a storm of new opposition. Blocked bittorrent, politically censored concerts, politically censored email, and the degradation of competition have all made headlines and controversy. A backlash is rising.

London's police force was Thursday found guilty of breaching health and safety laws and shooting dead an innocent man.

London's Metropolitan Police was fined $362,000 for placing lives at risk in the operation that led to the death of Jean Charles de Menezes on July 22, 2005. It also faces paying $798,000 in prosecution costs. The verdict is likely to be a major embarrassment to the police force, which has faced widespread criticism for trying to cover up errors committed during the shooting. De Menezes' family has repeatedly called for those involved to face criminal charges.

Let's hope this will make travel safer for all of us. Armed paranoia and a disregard for rights are dangerous.

Update. Management did not learn its lesson.

Towards the very end of the trial, Mr Thwaites also tried to make the judge, Mr Justice Henriques, disqualify himself on the grounds that he was "entirely pro-prosecution, unbalanced and totally lacking in objectivity".

Sir Ian was in court to hear the jury deliver its guilty verdict. Speaking outside the Old Bailey Sir Ian was in obdurate mood insisting there was no evidence of systematic failure by the Metropolitan police, telling the media "I am going to go back to New Scotland Yard to get on with my job."

They should be replaced by others who will protect public safety not threaten it. The Register points out the most absurd parts of this case and why it won't make anyone safer.

No one police officer - nor any identifiably-small group of police - was to blame for the mistaken shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005. Rather, the entire 30,000-strong Metropolitan force have all been found guilty - and, rather comically, "fined" £175k.

Given that the officers who shot de Menezes have suffered absolutely no consequences from this trial - indeed, were not "hauled off to court" even to testify - [nothing will change].

things the Met did - or more accurately failed to do. They didn't manage to get armed officers to de Menezes for more than four hours, despite the fact that they thought he was an identified suicide bomber. Surveillance officers - having fouled up the identification, perhaps with some involement by undercover special-forces surveillance troops who were also present - followed a man they believed to be a bomber onto crowded public transport not once, but twice, failing repeatedly to do anything; and their commanders didn't encourage them.

[Ian Blair's] wilful mishandling of the media afterwards, his manoeuvres to try to keep the IPCC out of the investigation, his refusal to accept - by not pleading guilty in this trial - that anything had gone wrong: all of these damn him utterly.

One my favorite things about Konqueror is vi motion commands. The letters "hjkl" move web pages right, down, up and left. Between that and IBM's trackpoint, I never have to take my hands off a keyboard or need a mouse until I want to.

Slashdot seems to have used "j" as a shortcut for something else recently. Now I have to reach for arrow keys and scroll bars or carry a mouse around. Please make it stop.

Peace protesters were unable to leave the country because their names were added to a database of criminals.

"The FBI's placing of peace activists on an international criminal database is blatant political intimidation of US citizens opposed to Bush administration policies," says Colonel Wright, who was also Deputy US Ambassador in four countries. "The Canadian government should certainly not accept this FBI database as the criteria for entering the country."

"The list is supposed to be for felony and serious misdemeanor offenses. We don't qualify-- it's for sex offenders, foreign fugitives, gang violence and terrorist organizations, people who are on parole, a list of eight categories all together."

There's a serious due process violation here because a listing in this database is equivalent to an "infamous" conviction. Having your organization labled "terrorist" is equally damaging and almost as arbitrary.

Updates

Discussion is here.

• Strangely, guards must obey this US generated list, " The border agents at the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls who barred Medea and Ann said the mere fact that they were listed on the NCIC was sufficient to bar them from entry." The US tells Canada who can cross their border, how insulting.
• By law, they will be kept out for five years, The peace activists met Thursday afternoon with immigration officials at the Canadian embassy in Washington. The women were informed they could not enter Canada until they completed a lengthy application detailing their "criminal rehabilitation."
• The same source quotes outraged Canadian MPs. The women received support Thursday from several New Democrat MPs, including Toronto's Olivia Chow, who wrote Canadian diplomats in the U.S. to request the activists be admitted into Canada. "In Canada, peaceful protest is not a criminal activity, despite how some U.S. agencies may regard it," Chow wrote in the letter to Stephen Brereton, Canada's consul general in Buffalo. Decisions on admitting visitors to Canada should be made "based on appropriate standards decided by the Canadian government, and not by any other foreign body.
• One of the victims explains what happened in detail. Regardless of what you think about Iraq, please sign their petition.

The BBC is reporting a new government threat to internet and software freedom:

The UK government could legislate to crack down on illegal file-sharers, a senior official has told the BBC's iPM programme. ... the technology necessary to track illegal file sharing would mean that "it is quite possible to know where it is happening and who it is happening with". The British Phonographic Industry was pleased at the government's tough line.

Cory Doctorow described the idea as misbegotten. "It represents the opinion of someone who doesn't understand technology very well, and hasn't really thought through the implications of what he's promising. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who's an actual computer scientist involved in digital signal processing who believes that you can accurately identify copyrighted works with any kind of reliability in a variety of situations," he said.

A former Communist wanting to put guards on all of those internet copying machines? Look out!

Internet freedom, is vital to the future of free societies, but it is under assault by both government and industry. As the internet subsumes traditional news, libaries, communications and entertainment delivery, the need to keep it free is paramount. The internet must remain true to it's core philosophy if we are to have free speech and press. Free software alone can not counter networks that have owners because network owners can demand non free software for network access. What begins with port blocks and email snooping ends with a world that looks like a cross between Burma and Richard Stallman's distopian vision.

Some industry players support a limited subset of network freedom they call, net neutrality. This subset is often not sufficient to provide real freedom because it does not allow you to use every packet you purchase as you please. Real network freedom is much like software freedom and might roughly be formulated:

1. The freedom to use your packets for any purpose. You should be able to run the same servers anyone else does. This is a first amendment issue.
2. The freedom to use public sites as you chose. No one should be able to block information that is freely shared.
3. The freedom to share your bandwith and mirror public information for your neighbors.
4. The freedom to improve the public networks, and share with the public, so that the whole community benefits. Government monopolies are unAmerican and this is compounded when communities are prevented from creating networks.

I'm going to track attacks on network freedom and it's consequences here. I'll start with my journal and twitter's and build from there.

From 2005

• March 3, A North Carolina telco admits to blocking VoIP and promisses FTC it won't anymore.

From 2006

• March 16, Retired people want network freedom too
• June 2, US Government demands ISP retain customer data. Big Brother is watching.
• June 8, Nancy Pelosi declares support for Net Neutrality. The same day Congress defeated it.
• August 21, Deborah Platt Majoras, the FTC's Republican chairman, won't defend your network freedom.
• September 6, Justice Department: Net neutrality regulations aren't necessary
• December 29, FCC demands partial network freedom in return for ATT BellSouth merger approval.
• AT&T CEO Edward Whitacre claims he won't degrade competing traffic but wants the ability to do so.

From 2007:

• April 11, Bush demands more spy power.
• April 27, Ohio University Bans P2P at request of Music Industry. This and a bribe provided temporary relief from RIAA shakedowns
• June 3, US Spectrum auctions are rigged in favor of incumbents.
• June 6, M$, Yahoo and Google Snub Amnesty Web Debate.
• June 11, Privacy FUD wars reveals the depravity of all parties.
• July 12, US Courts turn a deaf ear as Internet Radio is subsumed by RIAA fees.
• June 28, the FTC issues a report against network freedom laws. Jon Leibowitz dissagrees.
• August 6, the US Free Flow of Information Act makes bloggers second class journalists and brings us one step closer to press licences.
• August 7, the FBI raids the house of a suspected wiretap whistleblower.
• August 28, Yahoo sued for helping China to jail and torture a dissident.
• September 6, Why Net Neutrality Died
• September 8, US Court allows government retaliation for posting "objectionable" material on the web.
• September 20, M$, AOL and Yahoo import Chinese email filters to USA.
• October 4, How telcos fight net neutrality with corruption, threats and violence.
• October 14, Broadcasters Unite to Thwart ISP Use of TV Spectrum.
• October 17, RSF Reports world Wide Torture and Murder of Internet dissidents.
• October 20, China hijacks all search traffic.
• October 24, The UK considers mandatory, universal digital restrictions.
• October 27, Italy requires a state license to publish
• October 28, Russian government plays ugly and looks to China for censorship ideas
• October 30, Comcast caught sabotaging Google traffic.
• November 3, Save the Internet petitions FCC to stop Comcast throttling.
• November 4, US government thinks it can have your email without a warrent
• November 7, US government says you should not expect privacy in the future. Like most bullies, they blame their victims and promise more of the same and worse when the victims complain.
• November 15, Vuze, a bittorrent video provider, petitions FCC to stop Comcast throttling.

The Great firewall of China has been turned against its creators again. Anyone requesting Google, M$ or Yahoo search services will get Baidu instead. Techcrunch has continuing coverage and analysis.

Google confirmed that the Chinese are up to their old tricks. "We've had numerous reports that Google.cn and other search engines have been blocked in China and traffic redirected to other sites," said a company spokesman.

It serves them right because it's wrong to do business with oppressive governments like China's.

It should also be a lesson to anyone who does not believe in network neutrality. The guilty parties don't care about your rights any more than rights in China. Owned networks don't serve anyone but their owners.

The BBC has an article covering the 2007 Reporters Without Borders censorship rankings.

Bloggers are now finding themselves prey to censorship from repressive governments [that] realise the internet is now a key tool in promoting democracy and are moving to curb it.

China is one of the worst offenders, having imprisoned 50 people for postings on the internet. ... at least 64 people are currently imprisoned worldwide because of postings on the web, eight of them in Vietnam. [in Eritrea] The privately-owned press has been banished ... and the few journalists who dare to criticise the regime are thrown in prison. We know that four of them have died in detention and we have every reason to fear that others will suffer the same fate.

Don't think that these things only happen far away. The same companies are doing the same things to your neighbors. The US earns it's 48th rank with domestic spying, newspaper raids and bloggers imprisoned through concocted charges. From the report:

There were slightly fewer press freedom violations in the United States (48th) and blogger Josh Wolf was freed after 224 days in prison. But the detention of Al-Jazeeras Sudanese cameraman, Sami Al-Haj, since 13 June 2002 at the military base of Guantanamo and the murder of Chauncey Bailey in Oakland in August mean the United States is still unable to join the lead group.

Under the umbrella of fighting terrorism, you too can be detained without charges, and people have died mysteriously in US detention.

Related story, Burma is using US Filters to identify and murder dissidents.

This fascinating, thorough and peer reviewed study of tactics used to deny network neutrality covers all details all the dirty pool played by telcoms with seven case studdies. Everything from denial to threats of violence is covered and all of it is resoundingly familiar.

This is what a free internet is supposed to expose and why Government and business want to seize yet more control. Cooperating with these people is a vote for violence and tyranny right here in the US.