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Censorship

Submission + - UK - 'Extreme' porn proposals spark row

An anonymous reader writes: The BBC reports on the row over proposals by the UK Government to criminalise possession of "extreme" porn. The bill, published last week, would include fictional depictions of violence and images of acts between consenting adults. The law would also apply to screenshots taken from a legal film, if the screenshot was made for erotic purposes. Backlash opposes the law.

The bill follows from plans initially announced last August.
It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - Will Linux Win the Next Presidential Election?

i_like_spam writes: Douglas Karr has posted an interesting breakdown, complete with bar charts, of the operating systems and server software used by the websites for 23 declared and undeclared presidential candidates. The breakdown shows that there is nearly an equal split between Linux and Windows servers among the whole candidate pool. More interesting, all of the Democratic candidates except for Hillary favor Linux or FreeBSD. 69% of the Republican candidates, in contrast, prefer Windows. Is this preference for OSS or Microsoft a true reflection of differing political philosophies? And, more importantly, will Linux win the next election?
Operating Systems

Submission + - Ubuntu 7.04 from torrents full of Trojan Horses

Funny Finder writes: Many of the recent torrent site downloads of the new version of Ubuntu 7.04 have been loaded with well hidden trojan horses. Many are reporting to have found keyloggers and auto ad loaders buried within the new operating system. The totally free of charge operating system as been reported to ask for a donations on every start up. This is something a legitimate copy of Ubuntu will never do. Rest Of The Story
Media (Apple)

Submission + - iPhone Review Roundup

wile_e_wonka writes: Engadget put together the available early reviews of Apple's upcoming iPhone.

The verdict: it seems to be a good extremely portable computer (except for the problematic keyboard) and music player, just not a very good phone.
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Professional skill gaming the wave of the future? (theregister.com)

rocketgoldstar1962 writes: The online gambling industry has taken its share of lumps from the US in the last year, and the industry is now looking at skill gaming as a potentially legal revenue stream. By eliminating random number generators, skill games are not considered gambling for purposes of American law, and could be huge business for an industry on the ropes.
The Courts

Submission + - Wiretap chage for video of traffic stop (pennlive.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Brian D. Kelly didn't think he was doing anything illegal when he used his videocamera to record a Carlisle police officer during a traffic stop. Making movies is one of his hobbies, he said, and the stop was just another interesting event to film.

Now he's worried about going to prison or being burdened with a criminal record.

Kelly, 18, of Carlisle, was arrested on a felony wiretapping charge, with a penalty of up to 7 years in state prison.

Censorship

Submission + - Pirates protected in Sweden (aftonbladet.se)

mno writes: The Swedish Chambers Court (Kammarrätten) has ordered Antipiratbyrån, the Swedish version of MPA, to stop collecting IP-address of file sharers. Basically, the Swedish privacy law states that companies cannot collect personal information without your consent or proof of business relation. Since an IP-address can be used to uniquely identify a person, it is now considered as personal information. This is the second time that Antipiratbyrån lost this case. Most likely they will appeal to the highest instance, but it's uncertain if that appeal will be granted. The implications of this ruling is that the hunt for Swedish file sharers is effectively stopped. Since the Swedish privacy law is based on EU law, the whole of Europe was just granted a shimmer of hope for similar rulings. The article is in Swedish.
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Church wants to censor shootout in Cathedral (bbc.co.uk)

eggdeng writes: "Church of England officials threatened legal action against Sony for using Manchester Cathedral as a backdrop for Resistance: Fall of Man. Apparently they are afraid that using a cathedral as a background for a shootout might give people ideas, especially in view of the rise in gun crimes in Manchester. How many masterpieces would they have to ban if they applied this principle across the board to film and literary works?"
Privacy

Submission + - Google Engineer Response to Privacy Report (mattcutts.com)

* * Beatles-Beatles writes: "http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/privacy-internationa l-loses-all-credibility/
Sigh. Google as a company takes privacy very seriously. I personally feel strongly about protecting our users' privacy. So I'm frustrated by a recent study that Privacy International did, and I want to know if I'm off-base in my reaction. I got back home from SMX and I'm surfing the web when I see this AP article entitled "Watchdog group slams Google on privacy":

So I surf over to Privacy International (PI) to read the actual report, and I have to be honest with you — it made me mad. But I try not to blog when I'm angry, so I decided to sleep on it. After sleeping on it, I'm still pretty frustrated with Privacy International's conclusions. Here's my take."

Censorship

Submission + - Indian Nationalists Censor Orkut

starkravingmad writes: The Economic Times is running a story on Hindu nationalists in India threatening to wreck internet cafes that don't block parts of Orkut that the vigilantes find offensive. From the article:

"Orkut is used by many destructive elements to spread canards about India, Hindus, our gods and cultural heritage," said Abhijit Phanse, president of Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, the student group.
"We are gently telling Internet cafe owners that it is their responsibility to see that surfers do not use their facility to carry out such hate campaigns," he said.
"Or else, we will have to do that job for them." Last week, dozens of Shiv Sena workers vandalised some Internet centres, saying they were not stopping their customers from accessing Orkut groups involved in sending hate messages.
The campaign is being run by the Shiv Sena, which has, in the past, fought against such threats to Indian society as Valentine's Day, the movie "Fire" which showed a lesbian love affair, and more recently, Richard Gere. They hold power in the Mumbai local government, and in the past have formed governments at the state level and were part of the coalition in the last national government in India.

And just to prove that they are more than an illiterate medieval mob who like to burn things down, they are taking a 21st century approach to censorship this time:

Phanse said his group was developing a special software that Internet service providers could install to block any message containing certain words and phrases such as "I hate" or "I despise". "The software should be ready in 2-3 months"
United States

Submission + - Court: Cops Can Steal and Lie to Conduct Searches (lawbean.com)

Spamicles writes: "Police officers faked a car jacking in order to search a car that was suspected to be used in drug trafficking. They discovered drugs and arrested the owners of the car. A lower court ruled that the warrant-less search and seizure violated the Fourth Amendment and that the drugs could not be used as evidence. This ruling was overturned today."
Censorship

Submission + - Craigslist blocks listpic.com (craigslist.org)

An anonymous reader writes: I tried loading up listpic.com today, my favorite 3rd party visual interface to Craigslist this afternoon, only to discover that Craigslist finally put an end to all the fun. The folks behind Listpic.com had a great idea — display only Craigslist entries that featured images, allowing visitors to process vast quantities of Craigslist listings at just a glance, and quickly identify items of interest. Parties Over! — Hello, Unfortunately this afternoon Craigslist has blocked us... You may share your thoughts on this Craigslist forum: http://forums.sandiego.craigslist.org/?ID=65289281 Thank you, Ryan —
Programming

Submission + - Listpic bas been shut down (listpic.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Listpic, that indispensible tool for browsing Craigslist ads visually, has been shut down today without an explanation. I emailed Ryan Sit, the developer who created Listpic, and he said Craigslist slapped him with a cease-and-desist order. So why can't Craigslist do their own innovation? After using Listpic, I shudder at the thought of browsing the original Craigslist 1980s style lists of text headlines. Please give this the publicity it deserves, we need a lot of emails to Craigslist (polite ones) if we're going to stand a chance of getting this awesome innovative tool back.
United States

Submission + - 10 year sentence for receiving oral sex challenged (lawbean.com)

Spamicles writes: "Genarlow Wilson was sentenced to 10 years in prison for receiving consensual oral sex from a 15 year old girl when he was 17.The sentence Wilson received has been denounced by members of the jury that convicted him. Even the author of the law that put Wilson behind bars disagrees with the punishment. Why is he still in jail?"
Software

Submission + - White house seeks overhaul of US patent system

icfantv writes: "The NY Times is reporting that the white house is seeking overhaul of the US patent system.

While I'm not so naiive to believe that this is 1) real, and most importantly 2) will ever actually happen I am quite happy to see that software patents will supposedly be the first in the pilot program to subject patents to public scrutiny. In our extremely litigious society this actually sounds like a great idea (and it's not just the alcohol talking here...). In the pilot program, software "patents will be posted on a Web site, and members of the public with software expertise will be allowed to send the patent office technical references related to the patent claims."

Now, whether or not they redirect those comments to /dev/null remains to be seen. So for now, I'm cautiously optimistic."

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