requiem.net.au - Privacy and Legality

Badgless APEC Police cleared: Name tags 'compromised safety'

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:06:36 +1000

An investigation into police officers who removed their name badges during the Saturday 8th APEC protest have been cleared, citing the badges compromised the safety of the officers as they could be used against them. This is despite protesters claiming that many of the officers wore badges attached with velcro. The clearing comes after public criticism that name tags were removed so that the officers could not be identified.

Human Rights Monitors member Dale Mills took over 200 photographs [2] of officers with removed name badges. The Sydney Morning Herald [2] reports that a video clip taken by Drew Bowie has one officer saying "It's one of the policies the bosses have this week".

I find the explanation given by officers to be false, deliberately misleading, and illogical. There are a number of reasons this:

It would be extremely difficult to remove a name tag during a scuffle with a strong, well-equipped officer.
The pins in the name tag would have to be bent 90 degrees in order to be used as a stabbing weapon. This could not happen during a scuffle.
If the pins were on a hinge, they would need to be rotated out 90 degrees and held at that angle. This highly dexterous task could not be achieved during a scuffle.
Removing an officer's pin would be just as difficult as unclipping and removing any of the officer's other weapons. It would illogical for a protester to go for such an ineffective weapon
The pin metal is too weak and prone to bending to be an effective weapon
There are far more dangerous implements that could be used as weapons: rocks, rings, protester poster sticks.
Officers were not searching protesters, as indicated by officers being hit by darts and an iron bar. If the use of weapons was a concern, protesters would have been more carefully inspected.
If this was a valid concern, police badges used in normal street duties would have been replaced with velcro substitutes prior to this. The long-standing practise of retention security on police belts indicates this policy.

Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione originally stated that "There are times when officers might lose those badges in a scuffle." However, as the protests were largely peaceful, it became apparent that this could not be the case for so many officers. The linked video is soft and of low-quality. It would need to undergo forensic video analysis for it to be taken seriously.

Chas Licciardello and Julian Morrow detained over APEC stunt

Thu, 6 Sep 2007 14:23:08 +1000

The Chaser's War on Everything stars Chas Licciardello and executive producer Julian Morrow have been detained by police after staging a fake motorcade through Sydney during APEC. Using the motorcade, the crew were able to penetrate the security zone surrounding the Intercontinential hotel where President George W. Bush is staying.

The pair had been detained but not charged over the incident. The fake convoy had been dressed to mimic the official Canadia, though Chris Taylor stated there was no particular motivation for this decision. The Chaser stars have a history of trouble with the police, much to the delight of their audience.

Wikipedia and the not so intelligent Central Intelligence Agency

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:27:14 +1000

One of the hot topics floating around the Internet this week is Virgil Griffith's wikipedia scanning tool. The tool operates by scanning through the volumes of wikipedia edits, and tracing back the IP's that made them.

As anyone who has edited/vandalised a Wikipedia page before knows, Wiki keeps a permanent and detailed log of all edits, and the computer IP addresses that made them. An IP address is essentially the computer equivalent of a phone number, it's unique and traceable. Given the growth and presence of Wikipedia, the creation of an aggregate tracing scanner was only a matter of time.

Given the technical detail of IP's, it's not surprising that companies and individuals within Fox news, Diebold, the BBC, and US congressional offices would be caught out. However, for officers within the Central Intelligence Agency to be caught out, officers whose first function is "obtaining and analyzing information", is laughable. So laughable that the "IA" in CIA might stand for something else.

In some cases, such as the BBC, Wikipedia edits are relatively innocuous and the act of individuals. But in the cases of Fox news, Diebold, and some US congressmen, it illustrates a systematic program of deception and propaganda. What is perhaps most worrying is that the fundamental task of two of these institutions is truth and integrity.

Of course the appearance of the scanner is only a minor setback for these companies and institutions. Circumventing the Wikipedia scanner can be easily achieved if anonymity software is used, such as TOR or a non-transparent proxy, which I discussed two years ago.

Australian drivers hit below the belt

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:31:01 +1000

Australia is to release a new set of road safety commercials which aims to shame speeding males into slowing down. The creators say that the previously used graphic content commercials have not worked, believing that modern media has desensitised males to such images.

Given the crash statistics of young men it would be hard to argue against the phallic mentality of male speeding. However, whether a psychological campaign attacking the manhood of young male drivers will have any effect is unclear. Breaking the ubiquitous mix of speed and sex put forward by cool-factor films like The Fast and the Furious, Need for Speed gaming titles, and car magazines will be difficult.

Spoilt - A case of mistaken copyright infringement?

Tue, 22 May 2007 18:34:05 +1000

In my previous entry I linked to a new Threadless t-shirt called Spoilt, designed by Oliver Moss. A funny little shirt, the design uses colourful graphics to spoil 18 famous movie pop culture references; for example, Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father.

However there now appears to be some controversy over the original author. Sendai pointed me to this post which claims that Olly ripped the design off from an earlier shirt by Tom Brazelton. Both shirts use the same movie spoilers, and both have similar sounding shirt names.

Reading the comments, it appears that Olly has posted to defend himself. Olly claims that the design was inspired by a spoiler forum thread he started nearly 3 years ago. The thread's creator is indeed, Olly Moss.

At this point it would be difficult for either author to lay claim to the original content, given the large public input to the spoiler thread. Olly may have been inspired to create the shirt after seeing Tom's earlier design, or it may have just been a coincidence, memory is a strange thing. Either way, Olly has spoken with Tom, and both are cool with each other using the content.

If you liked Olly's shirt Spoilt, check out some of his other fantastic designs. The geek in me loves Generation Game.

*Update: Tom Brazelton has replied to me, saying that he's also posted over at You Thought We Wouldn't Notice to help clear up the matter. As I should have mentioned earlier, you can check out the rest of Tom's works over at his shop; the man does great comics and shirts (daily comic bookmarks +1). Given the frequency at which I drop pop-culture references into my dialogue, I'm going to have to say, yeah I'm a junkie.

Australian 'Do not call' Registry now online

Thu, 3 May 2007 13:17:52 +1000

Today the Australian 'Do Not Call' Registry came on-line. The registry was put in place to allow people to opt-out of receiving Australian-based telemarketing calls. You can register your fixed line and mobile numbers at www.donotcall.gov.au. Here's an article providing some background information on the scheme.

It's all in the numbers ... Furore at Digg over HD DVD censorship

Wed, 2 May 2007 10:52:00 +1000

A tidal wave has hit the Internet in recent days, and it comes in the form a simple hexadecimal number. I can't repeat that number here, as requiem would be issued with an MPAA takedown notice.

So what's this all about? Back in February it was reported that the processing key required decrypt, and hence pirate, any HD DVD and Blue-ray disc had been discovered (some history). The discovery was posted on the Doom9 forums, long time enemy of copyrighted media content. Even linking to the specifc thread can result in a takedown notice. So instead I'll direct you to rudd-o.com, and Wired, who both proudly displays both the HD DVD decryption key, and numerous other useful links.

From rudd-o.com "Now, even if this number stopped working (and it will, thanks to the revocation procedures in HD-DVD’s encryption scheme) or if it were a hoax, the decryption system has already been figured out and is implemented in a software program called BackupHDDVD." [code link removed]

So why now, what has happened since February that has created this furore, a digital revolt? A few days ago stories began to appear on Digg that linked to the HD DVD decryption code, including one humorous story of how the AACS licensors accidentally published the key in their own takedown notice (can there be a better example of irony?).

Digg, one of the fastest growing social bookmarking / networking sites, quickly removed these posts after a request from their previous sponsors, HD DVD. News quickly spread amongst the Digg community of this perceived betrayal. Within hours, a similar story reached almost 16000 diggs before being pulled by Digg administrators, just short of it being the number one story ever posted (cached example). Further still, Digg has deleted stories discussing Digg's actions, along with user accounts involved in the matter.

Yesterday Digg administrators explained their actions citing legal reasons, but the damage had already been done [2]. I'll close with quote from downloadsquad "We, digital citizens -- commonly referred to by the vulgar term of 'consumers' -- have had enough of content lock-in. We've bought and re-bought entertainment media -- repackaged and regurgitated digital vomitus -- until we're blue in the face. We've been told time and time again that DRM is for our own protection, and we're finally and inconsolably fed up." ... "The bottom line remains, we as consumers, want our content free (as in Freedom) and if we don't get it, we'll take our content free (as in beer)."

What follows is a collection of links related to this story.

BoingBoing links to doom9 and other site (now censored)
BoingBoing issued with takedown notice
Early blog post about hacker Arnezami's discovery (now censored)
CDFreaks on ceast and desist letters
"I support Freedom [key]" button

Update: Digg is being slammed by a user revolt, as this screenshot illustrates. I'd like to say this is an isolated incident, but it's not. Anger at Digg has being growing for over a year for a variety of reasons.

Update 2: 4:07pm (GMT +10:00) Digg went down briefly.

Update 3: 4:20 Digg is back up, but no changes seem to have been made to entries, or filtering algorithms.

Update 4: 4:36 Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, has posted about the last 24 hours. He's declared that Digg won't be removing anymore offending entries, and will sustain any resulting legal action. At this point though, it's not like Digg had much of a choice.

Second Life and CopyBot: The effects of piracy on a virtual economy

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:06:06 +1000

Many of you will have heard of Second Life, a massive on-line digital world in which people from all over the world come together to interact, to live out a second, virtual life. Second Life has been garnering increasing attention of late given the enormous real-world economy that is connected with the game. Like the real world, individuals can create and distribute goods for purchase by inhabitants, where in game dollars (Lindens) are purchased with real-world money. Host to a stable economy, the game's web site provides a real-time ticker indicating the amount of real-world dollars spent in the game; $597,333 US in the last 24 hours.

As a sociological experiment Second Life is also of immeasurable interest, with many societal constructs finding a place in this virtual world. Both good and bad, the latest form to strike Second Life is that of piracy. A tool known as CopyBot is now circulating the net which allows an individual to steal another player's items, and then produce as many copies as desired. The tool has a doubly negative effect on the world's stable economy; those of piracy (loss of income through markets flooded with cheap illegal copies), and that of personal theft. As the article states "Some virtual entrepreneurs now worry their livelihoods are at stake, and some are threatening to shut down their in-world businesses before they get fleeced."

Although technically not a code exploit, it is hoped that the company behind the game, Linden Labs, will patch the problem swiftly. However, in the eyes of some gamers, damage has already been done to the company's reputation with one content creator saying "I am so surprised Linden Lab did not see this coming and stop it."

BitTorrent admin sent to prison in US

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:16:35 +1000

In the first BitTorrent-related conviction in the US, 23 year old Grant Stanley has been sentenced to five months in prison, followed by a 5-month home detention and $3000 fine. The conviction was the result of Grant's admin work at the BitTorrent tracker Elitetorrents. Check out the full story over at TorrentFreak.com.

Pleading guilty to charges of "conspiracy to commit copyright infringement" and "criminal copyright infringement", the ruling sets an uncomfortable precedent with ramifications for Australian citizens. As many of you know, Australia adopted the US standards on Intellectual Property Rights when it signed the free trade agreement with America. On a related topic, for more information on why our adopted copyright extension is bad for users and artists, check out the wiki entry, and Arizona State's commentary for a more authoritative view.

America 'wants to end Guantanamo' Bay prison camp

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 11:30:42 +1000

Following a summit with EU leaders in Vienna, President George Bush announced that he would like to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. "I'd like to end Guantanamo. I'd like it to be over with," said President Bush.

Home to some 400 'illegal combatants', the camp has been a focus of international condemnation. In late 2003, British judge Lord Steyn stated that US was guilty of a "monstrous failure of justice", while in early 2006 both the UN and British Government called for the closure of Guantanamo. Most recently, the suicides of three inmates, and the labelling of these acts as a "good PR move" and "an act of asymmetric warfare" highlighted the perceived insensitivities of camp commanders towards prison inmates. For more information on the history of the camp, I refer you to this article.

NSA to harvest Social Networking sites for character profile database

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 00:42:04 +1000

New Scientist has discovered that the Pentagon's National Security Agency is developing software for the mass harvesting of user information from social networking sites for the creation of an all-encompassing personal profile database.

In December 2005 it was first revealed that in the months following September 11 2001, President Bush had secretly authorised the NSA to eavesdrop on the local and international phone calls of American citizens. Phone logs however are limited in scope and only provide a basic picture of user networks. With the rise of social networking sites like MySpace, Xanga, Classmates, etcetera, data mining operations like that of the NSA are now presented with a wealth of readily available user information.

But concerns over indiscreet behaviour on the Internet is nothing new; chat room cyber stalkers are already a major worry for parents. Previously though, the analysis of such information was more or less restricted to a single individual. However with the rise of semantic web technologies, data relating to user likes, dislikes, habits, social relationships (friends, acquaintances), and contact details is now understandable and thus searchable by a computer.

ThePirateBay.org is back online

Sat, 3 Jun 2006 19:33:40 +1000

I'm pleased to report that ThePirateBay.org is back online. In a jibe at police, the pirate bay has been renamed 'The Police Bay'. Search is still down, but should be up later tonight. If you're interested in the full story, check out Mikael Viborg's blog, the legal advisor to ThePirateBay. Containing a single entry, Mikael gives a complete rundown, in english, of the events that started on May 31st.

ThePirateBay.org shutdown by the Swedish National Criminal Police

Thu, 1 Jun 2006 11:42:21 +1000

The hugely popular and long-running BitTorrent site ThePirateBay.org has been temporarily shut down following a raid by the Swedish police. More information can be found at The Pirate Bay's information pages. To give you a sense of scale, this from the MPAA press release "According to Alexa.com which rates millions of websites around the world, The Pirate Bay was the 479th most visited website in the world ranking 21st in Sweden and 312th inthe U.S. In comparison, CNN.com is the 125th most popular site in Sweden." Alexa.com is currently down at the time of this article, but you can check out alexaholic for more traffic-related information.

Online Software, privacy and Google Notebook Beta

Sun, 21 May 2006 12:27:24 +1000

Google has released a beta of its new service: Notebook. It's essentially an online scrapbook which allows you to cut and paste text, images and URL's. This functionality can be seamlessly integrated while browsing with the use of their Firefox extension. You can find a few more screenshots over at the Winapple blog.

I have mixed feelings about online software. On the one hand its ease of access and removal of interoperability issues is great; I work across two different computing systems on a daily basis. However, I find myself holding back over privacy concerns. I don't particularly want Google or Microsoft having search access to all of my documents, bookmarks, random thoughts, and statistics on how often I might use these services singularly or interrelated.