Internet Censorship

It has come to me just now why the U.S. has tried to block the adoption of the ‘.xxx’ domain. It came to me when reading this article on the BBC Internet child porn block calls.

If there is the xxx domain, and the porn sites moved to this domain. Parental blocking of these sites would be easy.

And hence the real reason. Content could be blocked by domain address, rather than via filtering content. Utilizing filtering, any kind of censorship can me undertaken. You could block anything that is deemed ‘Obscene’. And that is a very soft definition. Any religious, or political subject could be considered obscene, and therefore block-able.

Child porn is only the trojan horse to begin this paradigm shift in thinking.

Now I’m sure this is not a surprise to some, but I just had to state this out-loud.

Interesting how the spellchecker brought up BlackBall along with Block-able. The new McCarthyism?

Skype’s Encryption

In this article on Boing Boing Skype’s security reviewed Cory Doctorow states:

It’s a truism in security that a security system that is kept secret is a not secure

I have never hear such a stupid thing in all my life. But he quotes another :

As Bruce Schneier says, “Anyone can design a security system so clever that he can’t think of a way of breaking it,”

Hence the independent review that Skype has performed. The only thing I’d have done differently would have been to have two independent reviews, by people that know crypto.

And this next statement is the icing on the cake:

A much better answer would be for Skype to disclose its code

What a stupid thing to do! This would be the last thing I would do with a secure code. Then you would have a bunch of hackers publishing exploits in days.

I am a supporter of Open Source, since before Cory was a twinkle in his father eye. (known as DECUS) But this one, is just plain dumb Cory.

Strange Search results, using

I have been finding that many of the search engines like Google, Yahoo, Technorati, and Feedster are returning different search results for the words . Now I don’t use these words in real text on this post as an example of this. Now I know that certain words have been blocked on Google. And most of these are for the Chinese government. But the odd results are showing up in Europe as well. are important words that should not be blocked.

Another Cloudy day

Do you ever get a feeling of impending doom?

Maybe it’s just another gloomy day, and not Rita.

But there may be more at work than the weather. Change is in the wind. And I’m not speaking about the weather. Even if there is Global Warming. Or that the Politics are heating up. Or war, or maybe it’s just a combination of these things. Somethings not right with the world today.

More later….

Maybe I need another Coffee.

Republican Politics, The ‘Sin’ of Greed.

There is an artical about the Music Companies getting Greedy and it brings up thoughts about other forms of Republican Greed And it all makes sense, “Greed is good!” Greed is the new Republican version of the American Way!

The Republicans are now trying to cover their ass over Katrina, by making it nearly impossible to dislodge them from Congress.

Republicans are now saying, if you can’t win on the facts buy your way back into Congress. Prevent Freedom of choice.

Impeach Bush and the corrupt Republican party which supports him. Vote for ANY NON Incumbentant running for a Republican seat in Congress.

Update: Looks like another Greedy Senator Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist under investigation. Are there NO honest Republicans?

Update, Again! And another fallen Greedy Politican DeLay Is Indicted

Who’s next? Rove?

The Assault on Federalism

Katrina, may have been a natural disaster, but it was a predictable one. And I’m not talking about the death, destruction and economic. It is a disaster for the Republican agenda, and again I’m not talking about the current administration and the current crop of politicians either.

The Republican agenda has been the systematic destruction of the federalist, centralist government of the United States of America otherwise known as the U.S.A. The disaster has been exposing this agenda too early. Well before the planned execution of the victim, the Federal Government. This might sound a little too far into the arena of the tin hat brigade. But the fundamental has been to push control of the government back into the state house. States Rights!

A world where the Federal government only has the power to regulate interstate commerce, and provide for the common defense, and very little else. The civil war, which was fought over this goal (not over slavery) failed in this pursuit and is only now coming to fruition in the form of an internally crippled, bureaucratically corrupt, and functionally inept federalist structure.

The fundamental goal of the Republicans was to demonstrate to the world that a Federal government was flawed. The failure of FEMA while appearing to be a failure of the government was in fact a victory for the Republicans. A further proof that the Federalist system does not work.

The disaster for the Republicans has been that it has happened when they are in power. If the the plan was to work, it was necessary to be the responsibility of the Democrats. Or any other person or party other than the Republicans. Katrina came too early, caused too much destruction.

But part of the demonstration, was to show that Republican controlled states like Florida, could manage, while a Democratically dominated ones like Louisiana could not.

They are likely to succeed in any case, as the Republicans are still in control of the Mass Media. Controlled as they are by big business. There is little information being disseminated that provides the true ‘Big Picture’. And what there is, it deliberately spun into a muddle to be interpreted as needed and to generally confuse the general population.

Another tenet of the Federalist government was a free and independent reporting of the news, another target of the Republicans. A goal mostly accomplished, with perhaps the oversight of the internet. A goal still firmly in their sites. With goals of censorship of the Internet content being then next element on their agenda.

And with all this, do you think Science has been excluded, far from it. It falls into the same category as truth, as the truth from their perspective is something to be managed and subject to interpretation. Redefinition, refinement to provide a more productive result.

But back to the disaster, the trouble with all this talk about decentralizations, is this, it’s not the President’s Job to redefine the government from a Federalist to a State Republic. The President is elected to uphold the constitution, including the three branches of the government, all of which the Republicans do NOT currently control. And hence is an Impeachable offense under the constitution. And exposing this Republican Goal is not a Republican Goal.

Impeach Bush , and impeach the republican goal!

The fix is in. Republicans 1, Katrina victims 0

Well it looks like the Republicans have the fix in, an opinion in the central states is this.

It’s their own Damn fault if the ignorant fools stayed in New Orleans. It’s time that they took responsibility for themselves.

If that doesn’t sound like a Republican line. I couldn’t think of a better one. Except that is the opinion of my own brother in Kansas. And I can’t believe that he would repeat such Republican propaganda.

F*** Bombs and Innovation

With all the F*** Bombs falling out of Microsoft is it any wonder that there is so much talk about the impending implosion of Microsoft?

With leadership of this caliber, what would you expect, Vision? Innovation? Vista? This kind of attitude is indicitive of the bully, striking out at what they themselves can not provide.

What next for poor Struggling Microsoft?

Action

Several years ago an Old Irishman walking his dog, heard my American accent while I was getting on a Bus. And tapped me, and ask ‘What are you going to do about this Bush fellow?’ This was before the Iraq war. And at that time I told him that I didn’t vote for him. But now maybe I can do more now.

Outsourcing India

My Indian Buddy tells me that Indian outsourcing company’s are having a hard time finding qualified IT staff. And that the search is draining staff from all the other tech areas of India. That includes Science, the Universities, and Hospitals. Any one who can do IT is being hired away with tempting salaries.

On another front, while the Indians are worried about the lose of Manufacturing jobs to China, that don’t appear to be very worried about IT jobs moving to China. As they believe that Superior english skills in India will give them an edge.