Off By One

“I believe in the rights of the individual.”

Beware of people claiming this, as it is often followed by a statement supporting the restriction of those rights. This time is no different.

I believe in the rights of the individual.

But I am starting to wonder about the domains in which those rights are exercised. Is it supportive of individual rights to permit corporate entities the same rights as actual people?

This comes about from reading a book on privacy issues — Database Nation — which enumerates a lot of abuses of the increasingly-connected and documented world we have created for ourselves. Now, I know I’m not the first person to read a book like that and say “Oh noes! How can I hide my porn habit now?!” but I do see some truth in his statements about how the right to privacy might be protected.

The problem is, I don’t necessarily accept that there is a right to privacy, per se.

Anyway, assuming that there is, I’m not sure who is less qualified to protect it — private industry, where they can make money for selling and abusing the information that they are supposed to protect, or government, repository of all things personal, with a vested interest (lately, especially) in making sure that we all conform to standards of behaviour that may or may not be driven by religions that we don’t all share.

It’s ucky.

Anyway, Char complained about a lack of posting, so I figured I’d polish off this draft. So there.

Well, it’s more noise, more erosion…

This “travesty of legal action”:http://www.canada.com/windsor/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=906ecfe4-1adc-45e2-998d-cb5c96f01fb2 (also referenced “here”:http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Canada/2005/08/20/1180942-sun.html, “here”:http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/soundoff/story.html?id=1f0563cf-c372-4224-a917-5a3f27e0455b, “here”:http://www.canada.com/technology/story.html?id=360edf23-b247-4f51-af14-45ced083696a, and “here”:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050819/COTLER17/TPNational/Canada) is… well, it’s pretty nasty.

Read it. And then marvel at the vast silence in the media (after a possible two or three days of notice) on the subject. And marvel further at the staggering indifference of the population at large to this.

This class of stupidity makes me sad.

Although we already pay a levy on our blank media under the assumption that we will illegally copy media, thereby — under the law of the land — rendering such copying legal, it seems that some segments of our lawmaking bodies wish to strip this right from us.

Which is, regrettably, not surprising in the least.

Feh. Just thought I’d pass that on, as well as a link to Digital Copyright Canada, a blog focusing on those kinds of issues. Worth keeping an eye on, if only for the occasional sense of outrage.

In other news, this week I completed the first runs of the application controller that I’ve been working on. My boss is in the process of adding new functionality all over the place, but at least he has time to help me out whenever I make my thrice-plus-daily visits to his office. All in all, it’s been a satisfying week, although I’m alone for the weekend, as Char is out camping with some friends for the next two days.

I’m still damned busy, but some things I just can’t help myself from posting.

This is a small site, with no real impact, and no political pretensions — I don’t provide a service to people who want info on the government, although I criticize sometimes. However, the fact that linking to this is cause for subpoenas from my own government… Well, let’s just say that suppression of free speech is abhorrent under all circumstances. Especially when it involves the very people in positions to suppress it.

This USian blogger is pumping out information about the Adscam trials, although I’m not sure what his angle on it is, and as far as I’m concerned is providing a valuable service.

Just remember — if you’re co-national with me, it might soon be illegal for you to read those links.

It’s worth noting, as someone else in the blog community has in response to this, an old saw about the internet: It will treat censorship as network damage and simply route around it. This is a feature, not a bug.

Anyway, the workload is lightening off a bit — I may be reachable for conversation (for the masochists among you) soon, and after next weekend I actually expect to have time to relax!

As seen here, it appears that our illustrious, and apparently irremovable leaders have decided that trivialities like private communication are no longer required for the day-to-day perpetuation of our government.

So.

Let’s see… an ISP will (if this passes) have to provide detailed information about any subscriber to the police, without a warrant? What the hell?

Words fail me, not least due to the degree that I’m tired. But I hope that you can see the way I do on this one — this is just flat-out wrong.

I just had my attention brought to the EFF(Electronic Freedoms Foundation)’s User’s Guide to EULA(End-User License Agreement)s, which is a nice, human-(read: non-lawyer)-readable introduction to the wooly wonders of licensing for software.

Trust me, read one of those some time. They’re bloody creepy, and they’re getting worse, not better.

Esoterica? Pah!

Word has come down from a research team (via a major authority on cryptography) that the SHA-1 hash algorithm has been broken (discussed here and here)

This is a bit tough to grok if you’re not a crypto-nerd, but essentially what this means is that one of the fundamental ways of signing (not encrypting, that’s a whole different ball of wax) a document cryptographically has been compromized. This isn’t immediately fatal, but it does bring computation of these hashes into the realm of possibility sooner rather than later. Essentially, the team conducting the research has cut a factor of 2^11 (2048, for the binary-impaired) off of the time required to force a hash collision (NSFNG(Not Safe For Non-Geeks)). This cuts the work involved down from approximately 1208925819614629174706176 attempts to 590295810358705651712. Scary, isn’t it?

What this means, basically, is it is plausibly possible for an attacker with the computer resources of the NSA or a major world-class computing centre to get someone to sign a document, then substitute another one for it that will pass as having been signed legitimately. This has fairly broad implications in an age where the validity of electronic evidence is being questioned (pdf).

Still, I guess it’s not that big of a deal. Something better will come up, I’m sure.

This “just in”:http://www.apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/07A1C8CA269E79B5CA256FA1000F9763: Apparently, Kazaa is logging user downloads from their p2p service. I’ve had plenty to say about Kazaa being a font of nastiness in the past, but this pretty much cements it. If you’re using it still, please stop.

I’m looking at the front matter of one of my professors’ weblog, which closely associates Che Guevara with the Free Culture movement.

Does anyone else see anything ironic in that? Rabid communist/socialist as an icon of Free Culture?

Faugh.

According to a few news soruces (“here”:http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,10704524%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html “and”:http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/state/article/0,1406,KNS3483166469,00.html “there”:http://www.wkrn.com/Global/story.asp?S=2269116 ) the US 6th cicruit court reached a decision that any and all sampling of music is illegal unless the work is specifically licensed. As you can imagine, the usual suspects are going to have a field day with this one.

From where I sit, I think that’s just stupid. There are abuses, to be sure, but sampling is a valuable addition to the toolsets of some “artists”:http://www.arztpfusch.com/, even though “others”:http://www.velvetacidchrist.com/ use it as a replacement for creativity.

What could be wrong with it, if it’s not overdone (whole measures, entire themes?)