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By Sean Bonner at 6:18 pm Thursday, Dec 9 If this image is to be believed—and I have no reason not to, other than that I found it on the internet—the rebel squadrons behind Anonymous (attn. "news" hacks - that would be an entirely different group from Wikileaks and/or Wikipedia) are about to change their approach. So far, as we've witnessed, they have been launching point-and-click distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks at companies perceived as the enemies of Wikileaks. Those targets included Mastercard, Paypal, and Visa (companies that froze donation funding), and Amazon (which denied hosting services).
Wikileaks: Anonymous stops dropping DDoS bombs, starts dropping science - Boing Boing
EFF on US domain copyright seizures - Boing Boing
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Corynne McSherry's got great commentary on the Department of Homeland Security's seizure of 82 domain names -- this act of quasi-legal confiscation and censorship is not only ineffective at combatting infringement, it also sucks up scarce DHS resources: First, these seizures may be just a short preview of the kind of overreaching enforcement we'll see if the Congress passes the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). That bill, which was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Nov 18, gives the government dramatic new copyright enforcement powers, in particular the ability to make entire websites disappear from the Internet if infringement, or even links to infringement, are deemed to be "central" to the purpose of the site.
By Cory Doctorow at 2:18 pm Friday, Nov 12 A reader writes, "Tim Powers, James Blaylock, and K.W. Jeter, all Cal State Fullerton alumni, give their university's paper an interview about their creation of steampunk, their friendship with Philip K. Dick, writing bad poetry for the paper when they attended the school, and Powers' book 'On Stranger Tides' being optioned for the next 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie."
Steampunk's founding fathers talk shop - Boing Boing
The Master Switch: Tim "Net Neutrality" Wu explains what's at stake in the battle for net freedom - Boing Boing
Tim Wu's The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires is as fascinating, wide-ranging, and, ultimately, inspiring book about communications policy and the information industries as you could hope to find. This is, of course, no surprise: Wu is one of America's great information policy scholars and communicators, probably best known for coining the term "Net Neutrality" (like many great Americans, Tim is, in fact, Canadian -- we attended the same elementary school in Toronto, where we enthusiastically traded Apple ][+ software and killed each others' D&D characters). Wu's great strength is in the breadth of his scholarship and in his ability to use humor, clear language, and innovative arguments to connect diverse ideas.I am delighted to report that From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright": Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda , the new peer reviewed book from Irwin Law on Bill C-32 and Canadian copyright, is now available online. All 20 chapters plus the introduction can be downloaded from the publisher under a Creative Commons licence. A print version of the 652 page book is available for purchase for $65. The book covers a very broad range of issues including Canadian copyright history, digital locks, ISP liability, creator concerns, educational provisions, and access to government and fact-based works.
Major Canadian copyright text is now a free download - Boing Boing
Jim Killock from the UK Open Rights Group says, "Late last week, staff at Consumer Focus in the UK heard that they are facing the sack, as the government has decided to abolish them to save 'waste'. Only this is the public body charged with protecting consumers against things like energy pricing rip-offs and the Digital Economy Act. Last year, Consumer Focus briefed Lords and MPs alongside human rights campaigners Liberty and the Open Rights Group, telling government that cutting people off the Internet without a fair trial would be - yes - bad for consumers. The reward for their sage advice is to face the axe.
UK government ready to abolish consumer protection agencies as "waste" - Boing Boing
Intel's latest business-model takes a page out of Hollywood's playbook: they're selling processors that have had some of their capabilities crippled (some of the cache and the hyperthreading support are switched off). For $50, they'll sell you a code that will unlock these capabilities. Conceptually, this is similar to the DRM notion that I can sell you a movie that you can watch on one screen for $5 today, and if you want to unlock your receiver's wireless output so you can watch it upstairs, it'll be another $5.
Intel + DRM: a crippled processor that you have to pay extra to unlock - Boing Boing
Public domain golden-age comic archive - Boing Boing
Our exclusive skullcap T-Shirt, by Sarina Frauenfelder, is $14.95 for men's sizes and $16.95 for women's sizes . Don't miss the artist's statement .
By Andrea James at 6:06 pm Monday, Aug 23 On the Submitterator , tcd004 points us to Israeli director Yael Hersonski's "A Film Unfinished." It's about found footage from a Nazi documentary rough cut, produced by the Goebbels Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda . Goebbels had a two-fold urgency to his work: short-term use as war propaganda, but also long-term use as historical propaganda of a race of people he thought would soon be extinct.
'A Film Unfinished': Nazi propaganda meta-documentary - Boing Boing
[ PHOTO : "One Wilshire," a CC-licensed image by Xeni Jardin] If you have been following the recent Google/Verizon moves regarding net neutrality , there's even more wonktastic action this week as an interesting Hollywood showdown is developing. This past Thursday, four major creative guilds and the MPAA submitted a joint reply comment to the Federal Communications Commission. This show of solidarity is rare as everyone in Hollywood tries to figure out how to deal with massive revenue losses in the face of copyright infringement. The WGAw then issued their own competing statement taking the opposite position.
Net Neutrality Showbiz Showdown: Hollywood unites against Google/Verizon proposal - Boing Boing
By Xeni Jardin at 11:30 am Wednesday, Aug 11 Cindy Cohn at the EFF has published an extensive—but easy-to-read—analysis of the positives and negatives in Google and Verizon's 'net neutrality proposal. No, it's not "hot girl quits via whiteboard," but Cindy manages to break down an inherently unsexy issue in language that makes sense for civilians. Also? Unlike HOPA, this story will affect your life, and that of your family, your community, the world around you, for a long time to come.