Something to think about.

As the War in Iraq moves on and on, and headlines like this one keep appearing every few days, it forces all of us to think a little bit more deeply about what may really be going on.

Reading this evening I came upon something of great interest. I wanted to share this with anyone who has never read it. It is an excerpt from the book Understanding Power : The indispensable Noam Chomsky. A must read for anyone in my opinion. Read the next paragraphs (spoken by Noam Chomsky April 15-16th of 1989)and ask yourself how they may apply to the current situation with Iraq and the "War on Terror."

Woman : What's been the point of the arms race Dr. Chomsky?

Chomsky : Well, there are a lot of things, it's served a number of crucial functions. Remember, any state, any state, has a primary enemy : its own population. If politics begins to break out inside your own country and the population starts getting active, all kinds of horrible things can happen--so you have to keep the population quiescent and obedient and passive. And international conflict is one of the best ways of doing it: if there's a big enemy around, people will abandon their rights, because you've got to survive.* So the arms race is functional in that respect- it creates global tension and a mood of fear.

It's also functional for controlling the empire : if we want to invade South Vietnam, let's say, we have to be able to make it look as if we're defending ourselves from the Russians.** If we are not able to do that, it is going to be a lot harder to invade South Vietnam. The domestic population just won't accept it-it's costly, it's morally costly if nothing else, to do these things.

* "He who would sacrifice freedom for safety, deserves neither." Benjamin Franklin. So Terrorism is in a sense, the new arms race, the new fear that is meant to loom over all of us at every second of our daily activities, making our survival instinct kick in, and we accept any changes that are made, simply so that we can be safe from "The Terrorists."

**We aren't invading Iraq, we're keeping ourselves safe from "The Terrorists."

The fears instilled in Americans by the "War on Terror" is the same type of fear, and in a sense a replacement for the fear brought forth by the Arms Race.

Woman's Question and Chomsky's response taken from Page 70 of the above mentioned book.

**Comments are by me.


- posted by d3pth @ 10:49 PM (0) comments

 
The REAL price of media.

As we enter into a new digital age, the ability to send and receive large amounts of data has become both a blessing and a curse for both the business and the consumer.

With CD and DVD prices on the rise, it is no wonder that consumers are growing tired and seeking other ways to fulfill their craving for good music. The most common complaints among consumers is that many albums in mainstream music don't have tracks that are worthy of spinning other than their radio singles, and up to 20 dollars for a couple of good songs that you've already heard on the radio once an hour for two months just doesn't seem appealing.

As the RIAA struggles to take down one P2P network after another(Napster, Audiogalaxy, Bearshare, Morpheous, Kazaa, etc.), they are growing frustrated with the downloading epidemic and are lashing out and making an example of anyone whose IP they can get ahold of, and even throwing lawsuits and court orders at ISP's who refuse to turn over the names of their subscribers, and their subscribers Online activities.

And in doing this, the RIAA has made quite a bad name for themselves, and has had many experts seriously questioning the ethics of their legal strategy. They have already had innocent people accidentally swept up in their net , click here for the most popular case, in which a 66 year old female sculptor who had never even downloaded ANY file sharing service, was accused of sharing more than 2,000 songs through Kazaa and Sony Music, BMG, Virgin, Interscope, Atlantic, Warner Brothers, and Arista threatened to hold her liable for up to $150,000 for each song.

Many of us already know how excessive the penalties for file sharing and copyright violations have become. I wanted to use this article to show the comparison between the sentences given out for drug related crimes and violent offenders, and the ones that the RIAA wants you to receive for clicking a mouse button and sharing some songs. Below you will find some comparisons of the sentences suggested for copyright violations, and those for other violent crimes and drug related offenses.

Case 1: Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, and his Russian company ElcomSoft, were slapped with charges that included copyright violations for writing and selling a program that is illegal in the U.S. The program changes Adobe System's e-book software to get around copyright protections in electronic books.
Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested in Las Vegas on July 16, 2001, and charged with trafficking in, and offering to the public, a software program that could circumvent technological protections on copyrighted material, under section 1201(b)(1)(A) of the U.S. Copyright Act, which was made law by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the DMCA). He was also charged with aiding and abetting his employer, Russian software development company, Elcom Ltd (a.k.a. ElcomSoft Co. Ltd)
Suggested sentence: The Russian programmer was accused of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and faced up to 25 years in prison.
This is the same amount of time in which a criminal convicted of First Degree Murder receives as a life sentence. Click here for full details about mandatory sentences for murder.
Thankfully, on December 13, 2001, Dmitry was released from U.S. custody and allowed to return to his home in Russia, as part of an agreement between Dmitry and the U.S. Attorney on behalf of the U.S. government. Under the agreement, all the criminal charges against Dmitry will eventually be dropped. The agreement requires Dmitry to testify for the U.S. Government in its continuing case against Dmitry's employer, ElcomSoft. It is likely that Dmitry will also testify on behalf of ElcomSoft.
Click here for everything you could ever want to know about this case.

New Bill Seeks Prison Time for File Swappers - In 2003, legislation to make illegal file swapping a felony was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by John Conyers (D.-Mich.) and Howard Berman (D.-Calif.). The bill carries penalties of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for uploading a copyrighted file to a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. The bill assumes each copyrighted work put on a P2P network was copied at least 10 times for a retail value of $2,500. The total retail value would make swapping a single file a felony.

So swapping a single file on a P2P network carries the same penalty as Unlawful Sale and Possession of Narcotic Drugs such as Crack Cocaine, Heroin, X, etc.
Click here to read all about the Mandatory Sentences for Unlawful Sale and Possession of Narcotic Drugs.

This has been part 1 of an ongoing story....read tomorrow for Part II.
- posted by d3pth @ 1:55 PM (0) comments

 
Interesting headlines.

Police 'puzzled' by disappearance of UW student - I am going a little more in depth on this story because it so odd and interesting. A university student who was the victim of a baffling attack in February now has disappeared, and police and volunteers were searching for clues Tuesday. Audrey R. Seiler, 20, a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, was last seen early Saturday near her off-campus apartment.

A surveillance tape from her apartment building showed her leaving without her coat or purse, and her door was left open, police Officer Jennifer Krueger said Tuesday. She also left her car behind.

Police spokesman Larry Kamholz said there is little information about where Seiler, of Rockford, Minnesota, was headed.

"We are very puzzled by it," Kamholz said Tuesday on NBC's "Today." "It's not typical of Audrey."

Kamholz said Seiler also was walking near her residence when she was attacked on February 1. She was struck from behind by an unknown assailant and knocked unconscious. She was then moved about a block but was not sexually assaulted. Nothing was taken from her.

Police have no evidence linking Seiler's disappearance to the attack, Krueger said.

Kamholz said Seiler had no idea who may have wanted to harm her.
Click here for more details.

Also, Several other college-age students from Minnesota have disappeared in recent years.

Last November, University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin of Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, was allegedly kidnapped from a mall parking lot in Grand Forks, North Dakota. A Crookston, Minnesota, man has been charged with kidnapping but no body has been found.

Erika Dalquist, 21, of Brainerd, Minnesota, was reported missing in October 2002 after she left a Brainerd bar. St. John's University student Josh Guimond, 20, was reported missing in November 2002 after leaving an apartment in Collegeville, Minnesota.

---

Ill senior dies in jump from birthday biplane flight - An elderly man recently diagnosed with a brain tumor leaped to his death from a vintage airplane he rented to celebrate his 88th birthday, officials said Tuesday. Joseph Harold Frost took off his safety belt at 300 to 400 feet, stood up in the open cockpit of the two-seat biplane and went over the side Monday.

"I think that was Dad's idea, to go out in a flash of glory," said Robert Frost, who had helped his father arrange the chartered flight on a biplane similar to the ones the elder Frost flew in World War II.

The man landed on an apartment patio, horrifying those who witnessed it.
Click here for the full story.

---

Teacher didn't violate policy in killing baby rabbits - PLANT CITY, Florida (AP) -- A Plant City High School teacher did not violate district policies or procedures last month when she used a shovel to euthanize two dying baby rabbits, school district investigators said.

The preliminary findings after Jane Bender, an agricultural science teacher, met with the district's Office of Professional Standards. Bender faced possible disciplinary action for dismembering the sickly newborn rabbits with a shovel in front of her students.
Click here for the full story.
- posted by d3pth @ 11:05 AM (0) comments

 
Headlines for today.

The oldest bank robber: No regrets - J.L. Hunter "Red" Rountree became the oldest man to ever rob a bank in the US. Sitting in a wheelchair now at the Dickens County Correctional Center, at the edge of the Texas Plains, Rountree puts his hand to his forehead, coaxing memories from a brain fogged by age. He's reached 92 and is serving a 12-year sentence, the equivalent of life for someone his age.

"You want to know why I rob banks?" Rountree said. "It's fun. I feel good, awful good. I feel good for sometimes days, for sometimes hours."

It was one last adventure for a man who'd had others years ago. He once made millions as a businessman, once had a family. The death of his son and then of his beloved wife marked the start of a second, lawless life. "I behaved as long as she was alive," he says. "After that, I went kind of crazy."
Click here for the full story.
- posted by d3pth @ 8:39 AM (0) comments

 
Headlines for today.



Gorilla pair splits after five years. Five years have passed without the pitter-patter of baby gorilla feet, and zookeepers have decided that Demba and Chaka just aren't working out. Introduced to each other five years ago at the Philadelphia Zoo amid high reproductive hopes, it's not even clear the gorillas ever mated. That's a big change for Chaka, who had been dubbed "best stud muffin" after fathering eight little ones at Cincinnati's zoo. Demba and Chaka were supposed to breed and start a new dynasty of apes. Gorilla handlers were particularly hoping that Demba, whose parents were wild-born, would mate to introduce her genes into the captive population. Click here for the full story.





Woman cleaning house shoots baby dead - A woman who found a shotgun while cleaning her home Sunday accidentally fired the weapon as she tried to determine whether it was loaded, killing a 1-year-old girl, police said. The woman told investigators she wanted to see if the gun was loaded, so she operated a slide on the gun that dropped a round into the firing chamber. But her finger was on the trigger, and the gun went off. Click here for the full story.

Scientist: Life on Mars could be from Earth. An American scientist believes that if life is finally proved to exist on Mars, its origins may be more mundane and closer to home than we think. "I believe there is life on Mars, and it's unequivocally there, because we sent it," said Andrew Schuerger in the New Scientist Magazine Wednesday. The University of Florida scientist said there is a good chance that microbes from Earth have made it to Mars by hitching a lift aboard space probes. Click here for the full story.



- posted by d3pth @ 9:42 AM (0) comments

 
Interesting Headlines for the day.



Artist dyes iceberg red in Greenland COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- An artist with 780 gallons of red dye, three fire hoses and a 20-member crew at his disposal went to Greenland in search of a blank canvas large enough to accommodate his creative impulse. "We all have a need to decorate Mother Nature because it belongs to all us," Danish artist Marco Evaristti said Thursday. "This is my iceberg; it belongs to me." Click here for the full story.



Daughters of Minnesota AG arrested - Two daughters of Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch were jailed in Chicago, accused of fighting with police after a night of heavy drinking. Elizabeth and Anne Hatch were celebrating Anne's 21st birthday with friends at a nightclub Friday night when they got into an argument with a man at the bar. They were told to leave because they were intoxicated. After police twice told the women to leave, Elizabeth Hatch ran toward the squad car and struck an officer in the face, knocking off the officer's glasses, Taylor said. She continued to scuffle as the officers tried to take her into custody. As officers tried to put Elizabeth Hatch into the squad car, her sister struck an officer in the face, Taylor said. When Anne Hatch was put into the squad car she kicked out the rear passenger-side window, Taylor said. Click here for the full story.




Disney theme parks boost admission prices. Beginning Sunday, Disneyland and California Adventure will increase the admission price to $49.75 for guests over 10 years old -- a jump of $2.75, or nearly 6 percent, Disneyland Resort announced Friday. In Florida, Walt Disney World also is raising its admission prices $2.75 on Sunday, from $52 to $54.75. Company officials said the higher price reflects the cost of investments in the popular theme parks. New attractions include a Snow White musical production at Disneyland and the "Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror" ride, which opens May 5 at California Adventure. Click here for the full story.





BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Several thousand Iraqis protested the closure of a newspaper Sunday, chanting anti-U.S. slogans and burning American flags outside the newspaper's office in Baghdad. The U.S.-led civil administration in Iraq closed the Baghdad newspaper Al Hawsa for 60 days, accusing its publishers of inciting violence against coalition troops. The paper is published by followers of prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "If the Coalition forces are going to keep on presenting us with such messages... they can just dream about any sort of end to terrorism," a statement from the newspaper said. "And they can also dream that we will stay quiet and step down from what we believe." Click here for the full story.
- posted by d3pth @ 9:15 AM (0) comments

 
What's in a name?
A fortune, some inmates say

According to CourtTV and CNN.com inmates across the nation are claiming copyright to their names and then demanding money from lawyers and judges who dare to utter them.

In a form of legally sanctioned harassment, inmates awaiting trial and already convicted are passing their time behind bars filing multimillion-dollar liens against figures involved in their cases for unauthorized use of their names in legal papers and transcripts.

However ludicrous, such scams can be a huge hassle for members of the legal community. Lawyers and judges have no choice but to contest them, which can be time-consuming and expensive, and often impedes the inmate's trial.

In the most recent example, a Rikers Island inmate being tried for crack-cocaine possession, interrupted his preliminary hearing a number of times to declare that his name was copyrighted and he would be demanding money from parties in the court who spoke it without his permission.

Click here for the whole story.
- posted by d3pth @ 2:33 PM (0) comments

 
The United States Caught him..so where is he?

The day that it all happened, it was everywhere I looked, every station on television, every major news site on the web, and all over radio. But for being such a huge news event, and a major turning point in the War on Iraq, it died out of the top headlines very quickly. If you had noticed that too, and wondered what the h3ll is going on with Saddam, here is what I could gather from around the net:

How did the U.S. find him?
A family close to Saddam Hussein provided the information that led to his capture, said Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the commander of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division. "Finally we got the ultimate information" from one of the family members, he said. Some 600 troops from the Fort Hood, Texas-based 4th Infantry along with Special Forces captured Hussein at 12:30 p.m. EST Saturday in a walled farm compound in Dawr, a town 10 miles from Tikrit. There were no shots fired or injuries in the raid, called "Operation Red Dawn."

Where did they find him?
In the farm courtyard there was a small cellar with a 6-foot-deep vertical tunnel that flattened out to provide space to lie down. A pipe leading to the surface provided fresh air. Bricks and dirt camouflaged the entrance. Hussein carried a pistol but didn't fire it. The farm was across the Tigris River from one of his palaces. Two men were detained with him, and U.S. soldiers confiscated weapons, a taxi and $750,000 in $100 bills.

Where is Hussein now?
He is being held and interrogated at an undisclosed location. His questioners are initially focusing on his knowledge of the current guerrilla war. Of secondary concern is whether he will shed light on the many unresolved questions about Iraq's alleged efforts to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and his government's ties to terrorism.

Has he revealed anything?
According to Time magazine, no. Asked whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, he replied, "No, of course not," according to Time. "The U.S. dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us."

Will this mean an end to the war?
It will mean, hopefully, a reduction in violent resistance. But even that is uncertain. Maj. Gen. Odierno of the 4th Infantry said the ousted leader did not appear to be directly organizing resistance, noting no communication devices were found in his hiding place.

Will Hussein be put on trial?
U.S. authorities have not yet said what his status will be. Leading members of the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council said they would put Hussein on trial in Baghdad under a tribunal agreement reached with Washington only last week. Amnesty International said Sunday that Hussein should be given POW status and allowed visits by the International Red Cross.

Are they sure it's him? He reportedly used lookalikes.
Yes, they're sure. U.S. officials waited to make a public announcement until medical tests and testing confirmed Hussein's identity. Hussein had admitted his identity when captured, and some marks on his body and other information gave the U.S. military an initial confirmation. President Bush was told when the DNA match was confirmed.

Could he face the death penalty?
Possibly. The U.S. occupation authority suspended use of the death penalty, but Iraqi officials have said they might reinstate it when a transitional government assumes sovereignty next July. "We want Saddam to get what he deserves," said Amar al-Hakim, a leader of the powerful Shiite party.

What crimes is Hussein accused of?
Iraq's war crimes tribunal would cover crimes committed from July 17, 1968 - the day Hussein's Baath Party came to power - until May 1, 2003, the day President Bush declared major hostilities over. The tribunal would try cases stemming from mass executions of Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s, as well as the suppression of uprisings by Kurds and Shiite Muslims soon after the 1991 Gulf War. It would also try cases committed against Iran, with which Iraq fought a bloody 1980-88 war, and against Kuwait, which Iraq invaded in 1990. Prosecutors will use documents seized from the former regime and evidence from the excavation of some of the 270 mass graves in Iraq that may hold the remains of many thousands of people.

Who will be doing the interrogating?
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that the Central Intelligence Agency would be in charge of interrogating Saddam Hussein, and he strongly defended the treatment of the former Iraqi leader since his capture as legal, proper and humane. The decision to entrust the C.I.A. with Mr. Hussein's interrogation was an easy one, Mr. Rumsfeld said. "It was a three-minute decision," he said, "and the first two were for coffee."

I hope this helps anyone who was wondering about this.

More info here, and here, and here.
- posted by d3pth @ 5:56 PM (0) comments

 
Get out of Jail Free Card?
Who passes these out and where do I get mine?

The rich and famous rarely spend time in prison for their offenses, we all know that. I wanted to take a minute to highlight some recent headlines that show examples of people receiving special treatment for various reasons.

Martha Stewart.
Now that Martha Stewart has been convicted by the jury on all counts, what sentence will she be likely to face?

A minimum security federal prison camp for women -- most likely the one in Danbury, Connecticut, (inmate population 235) where hotel magnate Leona Helmsley served time.

So for her lying, deceiving, and cheating of the system for her own financial gain at the expense of other peoples hard earned money, as well as: 1: No guilty plea, 2: No post-conviction admission of responsibility...

Immediately after the guilty verdicts came down, Stewart posted the following statement on her Web site: "I am obviously distressed by the jury's verdict but I continue to take comfort in knowing that I have done nothing wrong and that I have the enduring support of my family and friends."

While Stewart is facing an SEC civil action for insider trading, no corresponding criminal charge was brought.
Stewart was also convicted of a conspiracy to obstruct justice that included her broker, Peter Bacanovic, who also was convicted. Accordingly, Stewart may be eligible for a sentencing enhancement for being "an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor" in the criminal activity.

In addition, a charge that was dismissed also stood out: Judge Cedarbaum dismissed another type of securities fraud claim that was brought -- a charge based upon allegations that Stewart's lies boosted or at least bolstered her own company's stock in the wake of the investigation.

Click here for a CNN.com story on this subject.
- posted by d3pth @ 2:44 PM (0) comments

 
Santa Fe may require seat belts for pets

According to an article on CNN.com found Here, The city of Santa Fe may soon require pet owners to restrain their dogs, cats and ferrets in special pet seats or with seat belts while traveling in a moving vehicle.

The ordinance, endorsed by the city's public safety committee, would also require that "animals in open beds of trucks and cars be tethered or restrained enough so the animal can't fly out the window," said Kate Rindy, executive director of the Santa Fe Animal Shelter, who helped develop the proposed law.

There are special restraints on the market (Available by clicking Here) selling for about $20 to $30 to attach an animal to a seat belt.

The city council will vote on the ordinance within the month, Rindy said.

I am fine with this as long as my dog can still use it's cell phone in the car if it uses a hands-free headset or earpiece.
- posted by d3pth @ 3:15 AM (0) comments

 
Comcast signs deal to acuire TechTV

This could be a good or a bad thing. Comcast is planning on merging the station with G4. I have criticized G4TV in the past because of a few things. Too much coverage of PS2 titles when other, more important and popular things in the gaming community are happening. Not enough time spent talking about Online gaming. And also for an article that I read concerning Wil Wheaton and Travis Oates leaving as the hosts of the show "Arena." G4TV faked the playing of the in studio gaming clans, and replaced the footage with shots of BOTS playing the games, not the actual footage of the gamers playing. They also covered the last E3, where talks of Halo 2, and Xbox Live innovations, and a ton of really popular new Online games for PC and Xbox, and almost all that they chose to report on was the new titles for PS2.

Now on the bright side..... TechTV's outgoing owner is Vulcan Ventures, which is a VC firm that's mainly owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. So, hopefully by merging TechTV with G4, it will force G4 to include more coverage of PC, Xbox, and any Online titles in general.

Some comments posted on this story by Anonymous Slashdot users include:

G4 never had potential. Games are an interactive media. Why in God's name would you want to read news and view clips of other people playing games when you could be playing them yourself? Why wait 25 minutes see a review on a game you're curious about when you can go online and find it in 25 seconds?

Hopefully this merger will in effect kill G4 completely and simply give TechTV a little more programming devoted to video games instead.

I agree completely, I was so excited when G4 first launched, and after about a week I could not stand it. I love videogames very much, but sadly, G4 does nothing for them. It does not represent the true gaming community that exists on the net, nor the interests and concerns of most gamers.

Click here to read the whole Story and many more comments on it courtesy of Slashdot.org


- posted by d3pth @ 2:18 PM (0) comments

 
Korn and Howard Stern Team up to fight the Music Business.

From an article on CNN.com. Clear Channel pulled Stern's morning radio show off its stations last month because of indecency concerns, and Stern has since positioned himself as the poster child for free speech. The Korn song has fallen so in line with Stern's political rants that a remixed version featuring Stern is available at the band's official Web site, http://www.korn.com.

Korn's new video for the song "Y'all want a single" features the band and fans running through a Record store smashing aisles and CD's, and flashes statements across the screen like: "One corporation owns the 5 major video channels in the U.S.", "98% of the bands signed to a major don't make a profit"; "Two radio conglomerates control 42% of listeners"; "The music industry releases 100 songs per week."

"The stuff we said in the video (is the stuff) the music industry doesn't want kids to know about," Davis says. "Everyone is in bed with everyone in the industry. One corporation owns all the video channels, one corporation owns all the radio stations, and all the venues we play at are also the promoters. It's a whole monopoly. They basically deem what kids are going to hear."

Davis contends that restricted radio play and the music industry's big-business, hit-machine mentality is why record sales have been floundering.

Hopefully this duo of Korn & Stern will be able to make a slightly bigger impact than when Pearl Jam tried to fight TicketMaster and got OWNED!

Click here for a detailed article courtesy of CNN.com
- posted by d3pth @ 9:30 AM (0) comments

 
Microsoft Deletes 2 Characters from Office Font

A critical update is available to remove unacceptable symbols from the Bookshelf Symbol 7 font that is included with Microsoft Office 2003. The Bookshelf Symbol 7 font is contained in the Bssym7.ttf file.

The Swastika and Star of David are missing in the new version. Replaced with harmless, politically correct black squares. The Star of David was produced with an upper-case [T], and the tilde [~] produced the swastika, if you have the old version.

Click here to read the full article and also see before and after screenshots of this "update".
- posted by d3pth @ 1:47 PM (0) comments

 
Current Terror Alert Level for the Day.






And the Alert Level for today is....










- posted by d3pth @ 1:19 PM (0) comments

 
Microsoft eyeing AOL?
According to (CNN/Money) - Time Warner Inc. may be looking into the possibility of selling its AOL unit to Microsoft, according to a published report Friday.

The deal being discussed within Time Warner would include Microsoft (MSFT: Research, Estimates) paying cash plus the assumption of debt to acquire AOL, the paper said, adding that Microsoft may even be considering a possible investment in Time Warner Cable.

Both companies are already in discussions about ways to use Microsoft technology in Time Warner's content businesses, and discussions about a deal for AOL emanated from those talks, the report said.

According to the report, Time Warner lawyers have also been analyzing possible antitrust issues from such a deal, and have indicated there would be few roadblocks to Microsoft's acquisition of AOL.

- posted by d3pth @ 12:36 PM (0) comments

 
RIAA sues 532 more file-sharers

Today on CNN.com - Record industry again uses "John Doe" suboenas to uncover names of music-swappers.
March 23, 2004: 2:56 PM EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The U.S. music industry on Tuesday sued 532 more people for online copyright infringement, including 89 individuals using college networks.

Like 1,063 similar suits filed since January, the Recording Industry Association of America employed the "John Doe" litigation method because the names of the infringers accused of illegally distributing copyrighted sound recordings on peer-to-peer services were not yet known.

The RIAA, which cites digital piracy as a big factor behind a three-year slump in CD sales, said individuals at 21 universities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin were included.

Lawsuits against 443 illegal file sharers using commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were brought in California, Colorado, Missouri, Texas and Virginia, the RIAA said.

The RIAA identified song swappers by numerical Internet addresses only because it has been unable to sue suspected pirates by name since December, when an appeals court sided with Verizon Communications by ruling that ISPs did not have to respond to subpoenas filed as a prelude to lawsuits requesting names of users.

As in the earlier rounds, the RIAA plans to discover swappers' names and locations through court-issued subpoenas.

The RIAA represents the world's big record labels like Warner Music, Bertelsmann AG's BMG, EMI Group Plc, Sony Corp's Sony Music and Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group.

At this rate, if the RIAA sued 532 people a day, it would take them about 2059 years to sue all of the people who have downloaded Kazaa so far. :)


- posted by d3pth @ 11:57 AM (0) comments

 
Book Review: The Color of Water : A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride

To summarize, this is the story of Ruth McBride Jordan, born April 1, 1921 in Poland as Ruchel Dwajra Zylska, who migrated with her mother and father (he was an orthodox Jewish Rabbi) to the United States in 1923, lived briefly in New York City and then moved to Suffolk, Virginia, where she grew up. Her name was changed to Rachel Deborah Shilsky, and changed again when, at 19, she moved to Harlem and married a black man. She bore him eight children before he died in 1957, then married again and bore her second husband, another black man, four more children. She became a Christian and, with her second husband, started a store-front church in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Through the years, her twelve children all attended university, were graduated and established themselves in learned positions. She then went back to school and, in 1986, at age 65, earned a degree from Temple University in Social Work Administration and travels regularly to Paris, London and New York. At the time of writing, she lived in New Jersey, and is very active in volunteer work in Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey, as well as running a reading program in Ewing, NJ, where she lives with her daughter.

It is also the story of her 8th son, who wrote the book and became a musician, newspaper reporter and now, a writer of this memoir.

I was very skeptical about this book when I first picked it up, I will admit. And although I did not find it to be exceptional, I didn't mind reading it. The character development in the first part of the book wasn't what I had hoped, the author and his mother spend so much time talking about how "wrong" their situation was to those around them, that I missed out on some details of the supporting characters lives that I think would have been interesting, such as a slightly more detailed (maybe 3-5 pages) look into her mother and fathers lives.

The main characters, because of the time and place they live in, have a lot of hardships to deal with, and their family and living situation is not generally accepted by any of the groups from which they were created. In Harlem the Blacks don't accept it, in Virginia the whites don't accept it. And She also makes the transition along the way from Jew to Christian. Which coming from such a strict Jewish family, was almost inevitable for one of the siblings to leave their faith due to their father's harshness. And she also wished to completely sever all ties with the old town and with her family in general, so converting to a new religion provided her a tiny bit of mental and emotional relief, as it was a detatchment from an unpleasant past.

I do respect all of the effort put forth to raise and harbor a good, educated, and successful family, but I felt the books ending to be a kind of self gratifying kick for the Authors, by listing the schools attended and degrees held by each of the twelve children. Times are hard everywhere, and we all deal with stresses and social anxieties, and although the Author's were more severe than a lot of other peoples, I didn't think the "tooting of their own horn" if you will, was necessary.

Overall it was an ok read. I would say don't buy this book, or make an extra effort to ever read it, but if it comes up on a listing of books that you are required to read somewhere, don't be too bummed out, it is ok.

Paperback: 291 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.73 x 8.16 x 5.14
Publisher: Riverhead Books; Reissue edition (February 1997)
ISBN: 1573225789
- posted by d3pth @ 12:42 AM (0) comments

 
Are you a hypochondriac?

A story that struck me funny on CNN.com today. Click here for the story. I just picture all of these hypochondriacs reading it and then getting all paranoid and full of anxiety as to the level of their hypocondriasis. If you are a hypochondriac, you probably think that all of your worries are justified, and that the "others" (rest of the world) is simply not attentive or in tune with things and/or lazy. They are also generally self centered, so they most likely view the article "Are you a hypochondriac?" as yet another worry to add to their already long list.
- posted by d3pth @ 12:35 AM (0) comments

 
Book review: The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

I chose this book as my first review on this blog for a few reasons. The main one being that it is one of the few books that has demanded my attention so much that I could not help but read it in little more than one sitting.

Simon Singh, author of the bestselling Fermat's Enigma offers us a nice peek into the world of cryptography. He starts out simple, in ancient times, describing all sorts of crude forms of cryptography and stenography, ranging from the Caesar shift to shaving ones head, tattooing it, and letting the hair grow back over it.

The major theme of The Code Book is what Singh calls "the ongoing evolutionary battle between codemakers and codebreakers."

This theme is very apparent throughout, but the most in the chapters on WWII and the cracking of the German Enigma Code Machine by Alvin Turing.

Singh takes us all the way up to present time and even touches briefly on modern computer cryptography, quantum cryptography, and even deeply explores the problem of key distribution.

From the Rosetta Stone, to the Enigma, Sign takes us on a journey through our history and helps us to understand how deeply rooted mankind's need for privacy is, in all facets of our existence. And especially in war, politics, and business.

In the information age, the fear that drives cryptographic improvements is both capitalistic and libertarian--corporations need encryption to ensure that their secrets don't fall into the hands of competitors and regulators, and ordinary people need encryption to keep their everyday communications private in a free society. Similarly, the battles for greater decryption power come from said competitors and governments wary of insurrection.

The back of the book also features examples and tests for the reader to attempt after reading the tutorials and methods described by Singh in the book.

Well worth the money, this is a book I have read twice in the last two years. I loved it.

I may at some point revise this and make it a full and detailed review of the book, but for now I just wanted to breifly mention it.

If you liked this book, I would also suggest The Handbook of Applied Cryptography, and Practical Cryptography.

ISBN: 0385495323
Format: Paperback, 432pp
Pub. Date: August 2000
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
- posted by d3pth @ 11:08 PM (0) comments

 
Some worthwhile articles for today.

Click Here for a great Slashdot story about poor handwriting, and it's relation to computer dependency and usage. I type so much that my writting is also suffering, kind of an odd mix of cursive and print, with capital letters where I please. Whatever version of a letter I find the most convienient, I use, cursive or not, capital or lower case.

Ex President Bill Clinton's boyhood home is for sale on eBay, Click Here.


A native of Romania is filing suit and he claims that he wrote the source code to the popular file-sharing software Kazaa. In addition to seeking the rights to the software, Fabian Toader is seeking $25 million dollars in compensation. Click here for the full article.



Boy grabs knife after dad unplugs video game


FDA issues suicide caution for antidepressants. By the way, those pills that we gave you to stop feeling suicidal....they might make you kill yourself. Click here for the full story.







- posted by d3pth @ 4:01 PM (0) comments

 
Weapons of Mass Distortion?

I read an interesting article on CNN.com today about the War in Iraq.

The article backs up the idea that the war was started for reasons other than what the mainstream media wanted to have all of us believe.

According to CNN The United Nations' top two weapons experts said Sunday that the invasion of Iraq a year ago was not justified by the evidence in hand at the time.

The general opinion was that the United States was relying on a lot of hearsay and conjecture rather than hard facts (air and satellite images, etc.), and that the American Government and International corporations wanted a war for reasons other than what the mainstream media wanted us to know about.

"I think it's clear that in March, when the invasion took place, the evidence that had been brought forward was rapidly falling apart," Hans Blix, who oversaw the agency's investigation into whether Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

Blix described the evidence Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003 as "shaky," and said he related his opinion to U.S. officials, including national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

"I think they chose to ignore us," Blix said.

The article goes on to state some other pretty interesting points.

"We believe [Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei, frankly, is wrong," Cheney said. "And I think if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency in this kind of issue, especially where Iraq's concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what Saddam Hussein was doing."

Now, more than a year later, ElBaradei said, "I haven't seen anything on the ground at that time that supported Mr. Cheney's conclusion or statement, so -- and I thought to myself, well, history is going to be the judge."

No evidence of a nuclear weapons program has been found so far.

Blix, who recounts his search for weapons of mass destruction in his book "Disarming Iraq," said the Bush administration tended "to say that anything that was unaccounted for existed, whether it was sarin or mustard gas or anthrax."

One thing that was in the news at the time just before the War began, was the information that the United States acquired that was supposedly a contract between Iraq and Nigeria to import Uranium Oxide. And it was soon found out that this document was a forgery.

The most spectacular intelligence failure concerned a report by ElBaradei, who revealed that an alleged contract by Iraq with Niger to import uranium oxide was a forgery, Blix said.

"The document had been sitting with the CIA and their U.K. counterparts for a long while, and they had not discovered it," Blix said. "And I think it took the IAEA a day to discover that it was a forgery."

Blix said that during a meeting before the war with the U.S. president, Bush told him that "the U.S. genuinely wanted peace," and that "he was no wild, gung-ho Texan, bent on dragging the U.S. into war."

ElBaradei said he hoped the past year's events have taught world leaders a valuable lesson.

"We learned from Iraq that an inspection takes time, that we should be patient, that an inspection can, in fact, work."


U.N. inspectors look for chemical weapons in Iraq before the war.

A full text of the article sampled here can be found here.


Click here to find out more about UN Weapons inspector Hans Blix. He is the Chief Weapons Inspector for Iraq.
- posted by d3pth @ 12:32 PM (0) comments