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Next up for France: police keyloggers and Web censorship - Ars Technica
Having just passed its super-controversial Création et Internet "graduated response" law, you might think the French government would take at least a brief break from riling up the "internautes." Instead, the government is prepping a new crime bill that will, among other things, mandate Internet censorship at the ISP level, legalize government spyware, and create a massive meta-database of citizen information called "Pericles."
Boston College Campus Police: "Using Prompt Commands" May Be a Sign of Criminal Activity | Electronic Frontier Foundation
On Friday, EFF and the law firm of Fish and Richardson filed an emergency motion to quash [pdf] and for the return of seized property on behalf of a Boston College computer science student whose computers, cell phone, and other property were seized as part of an investigation into who sent an e-mail to a school mailing list identifying another student as gay. The problem? Not only is there no indication that any crime was committed, the investigating officer argued that the computer expertise of the student itself supported a finding of probable cause to seize the student's property.
Top Internet Threats: Censorship to Warrantless Surveillance | Threat Level from Wired.com
Vietnamese Authorities Rein In the Country's Vigorous Blogosphere - washingtonpost.com
Vietnam's government has issued several decrees in recent months to curtail blogging, as the number of Internet users soars in the communist country.\n\nThe campaign started in August, when the government published an edict giving police broad authority to move against online critics, including those who oppose "the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam" and undermine national security and social order.
China blocks access to New York Times Web site - Yahoo! News
China has blocked access to the New York Times Web site, the newspaper said Saturday, days after the central government defended its right to censor online content it deems illegal.
Bush Admin Rejects NYPD Spying Proposals as Illegal | Threat Level from Wired.com
I mean, when the Justice Department that put the warrantless back into wiretapping says your team's proposed spying plans are illegal, it's clearly time to place a call to internal affairs.
But not for NYPD police commissioner Raymond Kelly, who instead decided that the Bush administration was soft on wiretapping.
James McGrath Morris - Spam Filters Threaten Free Speech on the Internet - washingtonpost.com
Some efforts to block unwanted e-messages are threatening free speech on the Internet.
...What makes this phenomenon even more insidious is that in most cases, both the intended e-mail sender and recipients remain unaware of the censorship that spam filters impose. Only rarely is the sender informed when e-mail is quarantined or diverted. Such behind-the-scenes machinations make fighting back almost impossible.
EFF To Apple: Free Speech Isn't a DMCA Violation - ReadWriteWeb
The EFF has jumped on this case, saying that Apple "doesn't have a DMCA leg to stand on." According to EFF senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann, this move is effectively bending the law in order to stifle free speech. "Apple is essentially saying here that people can't even talk about the mechanisms that Apple uses to lock in its music to the iTunes software," he said.
Neutering the net is about repression, not protection | theage.com.au
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is pushing ahead with an internet filter that will dramatically slow Australian internet speeds.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority conducted tests earlier this year on six filters that could be imposed on internet service providers. Five slowed internet speeds by at least 20 per cent. And two of them crippled speeds by more than 75 per cent.
Maelstrom Over Metadata :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
A debate is carrying on in the undercurrents of the academic Web, pitting those who defend libraries’ core mission of open access against the membership organization that collects and operates a massive online catalog on which many of them rely.
Ping - Online Age Verification for Children Brings Privacy Worries - NYTimes.com
WHEN it comes to protecting children on the Internet and keeping them safe from predators, law enforcement officials have vocally advocated one approach in particular. They want popular sites, like the social network MySpace, to confirm the identities and ages of minors and then allow the young Web surfers to talk only with other children, or with adults approved by parents.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Tech giants in human rights deal
Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have signed a global code of conduct promising to offer better protection for online free speech and against official intrusion.
Microsoft Gets Patent for Patently Offensive Audio Content
Microsoft recently obtained a patent designed to create an Automatic Censorship of Audio Data For Broadcast . The invention is intended to act as a filter for live broadcasts where it is impracticable to delete or make inaudible certain undesired words or phrases. Additionally, other audio streams like music or games can utilize the automatic censor.
10 Years Later, Misunderstood DMCA is the Law That Saved the Web | Threat Level from Wired.com
The DMCA (.pdf) was conceived a decade ago as the United States' implementation of an international copyright treaty called WIPO. Hollywood wanted the bill to protect its intellectual property from being infringed on a massive scale, and secured a still-troubling anti-circumvention rule that generally prevents consumers from bypassing copy protection schemes. But history has shown that the far-more beneficial element in the law is a provision that provides ISPs, hosting companies and interactive services near blanket immunity for the intellectual property violations of their users — a provision responsible for opening vast speech and business opportunities — realized and unrealized.
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Thais block anti-royal websites
The Thai government says it is planning to build an internet firewall to block websites deemed insulting to the country's hugely popular royal family.
Web sites embrace human rights guidelines - Tech and gadgets- msnbc.com
Leading Internet companies, long criticized by human rights groups for their business dealings in China, are agreeing to new guidelines that seek to limit what data they should share with authorities worldwide and when they should do so.
The guidelines, to be announced Tuesday, call for Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to try to reduce the scope of government requests that appear to conflict with free speech and other human rights principles.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Australia trials national net filters
Is the Rudd government about to erect a Great Firewall of Australia - introducing a form of internet censorship that will infringe upon the freedom of computer users to browse the worldwide web?
'Net filters "required" for all Australians, no opt-out
Australians may not be able to opt out of the government's Internet filtering initiative like they were originally led to believe. Details have begun to come out about Australia's Cyber-Safety Plan, which aims to block "illegal" content from being accessed within the country, as well as pornographic material inappropriate for children. Right now, the system is in the testing stages, but network engineers are now saying that there's no way to opt out entirely from content filtering.
Seattle to Ditch 'Bad Words List' - The Paper Trail (usnews.com)
A vestige of technological times past, Seattle University's "bad words list," which screens out nonuniversity E-mails containing at least one of 40 offensive words, has annoyed some students and faculty for years and will most likely disappear by the end of this year, the Spectator reports.
Baltimore City Paper | Serious Business: Anonymous Takes On Scientology (and Doesn't Afraid of Anything) | Feature
Anonymous was born on an online image board, devoted mainly to pictures and discussions having to do with anime--Japanese animation. The site, 4chan.org, created in 2003 by an administrator who goes by the name "moot," was based on a Japanese forum whose founder believed that by making users anonymous their arguments would be judged on their own merits.
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