archive : 2003-07
RIAA begins delivering subpoenas
10:44 AM +1000, Jul 18 2003
Excerpt:
The RIAA has begun issuing ISPs with subpoenas demanding the identity of hundreds users it accuses of illegally sharing music files.
"This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Filing...
Freedom and repression in Indonesia
10:35 AM +1000, Jul 18 2003
Excerpt:
The Guardian reports on the contrast between advances in media freedom in Indonesia (with the notable exception of Aceh), and increasingly repressive laws aimed at speech by members of the...
Cuban jams satellite broadcasts to Iran
11:21 AM +1000, Jul 17 2003
Excerpt:
NBC has a piece on private satellite broadcasts to Iran being jammed by a source in Cuba. The broadcasts are made by private TV studios, mostly low budget Iranian language news and chat shows....
Federal wiretaps stored on insecure workstations
11:02 AM +1000, Jul 17 2003
Excerpt:
Cringley's pulput details insecurity and abuse of the CALEA automated wiretapping system. The Comverse Infosys case gets an indirect mention.
CALEA made the phone companies and pager...
Anonymous blogging and the end of the world
10:47 AM +1000, Jul 17 2003
Excerpt:
This Village Voice piece on anonymous weblogs gives Invisiblog a plug. The article also includes some interviews with psuedonymous bloggers, describing their reasons for choosing not to reveal...
Publicly available information called security threat
03:53 PM +1000, Jul 08 2003
Excerpt:
Washington Post reports on a universtiy student's research project that maps physical data and voice communications lines. Despite the fact that it was compiled from publicly available sources of...
Grokster forms p2p lobby group
11:52 AM +1000, Jul 08 2003
Excerpt:
Grokster has announced a new group, as yet unnamed, that will lobby Congress against the RIAA's anti-p2p campaign.
Grokster President Wayne Rosso said Monday that he's planning to help launch a...
Iran blocks 100,000 web sites
11:36 AM +1000, Jul 08 2003
Excerpt:
IT Analysis via The Register has a piece on internet censorship in Iran. It's a bit lacking in depth, but has a few details that are worth noting.
In order to implement the censorship, the...
Appeal considered against Irving film
11:14 AM +1000, Jul 08 2003
Excerpt:
Australian Jewish groups are considering appealing against a decision to allow a screening of a film by Holocaust revisionist David Irving. The JCCV had applied for an injunction against the...
Identity based email encryption announced
11:32 AM +1000, Jul 07 2003
Excerpt:
A California startup has announced a new email encryption system that uses Boneh and Franlkin's identity-based public key encryption to remove the need for key exchange.
Under the Voltage...
Australia proposes national identity database
10:34 PM +1000, Jul 06 2003
Excerpt:
The Australian government is considering linking drivers license, passport and other identity databases in a single national network. The database would be accessible not just by government...
Hong Kong sedition bill to be amended
05:03 PM +1000, Jul 05 2003
Excerpt:
Hong Kong's leader Tung Chee-hwa has announced he will amend the controversion sedition and subversion bill to remove the most controversial clauses. No details of the amendments yet.
"After...
Australian censor says speech is free, provided you don't mind a jail term
10:14 PM +1000, Jul 04 2003
Excerpt:
Australia's chief censor has defended the decision to have police halt a screening of the film Ken Park in Sydney. Inexplicably, he claims the threat of a one year jail term is not an...
Chavez appoints pro-censorship lieutenant as information minister
03:38 PM +1000, Jul 04 2003
Excerpt:
Venezuelan President Chavez has appointed as information minister a supporter of a new bill increasing government censorship powers over radio and television. Chavez has repeadedly censored TV...
Court: Anonymous P2P no defense
02:44 PM +1000, Jul 04 2003
Excerpt:
A US court decision last week suggests centralized p2p networks could be held responsible for the actions of anonymous users. The decision merely increases the value of a decentralized network,...
Venezuelan govt asserts right to beat journalists
02:13 PM +1000, Jul 04 2003
Excerpt:
The Venezuelan Vice President has accused Human Rights Watch of meddling in Venezuela's affairs, saying that the government's right to beat journalists overrides their free speech privileges....
Former Zimbabwe police officers describe torture, murder
02:56 PM +1000, Jul 04 2003
Excerpt:
The Guardian has an interview with former members of Zimbabwe's police force, forced out by Mugabe loyalists. They describe the takeover of police by government supporters, and their subsequent...
Algeria expels journalists for FIS coverage
12:18 PM +1000, Jul 04 2003
Excerpt:
The Algerian government has ordered two journalists to leave the country following a TV broadcast showing the release of two leaders of the Islamic Salvation Front.
"The Algerian authorities...
Sydney police halt screening of banned film
11:59 AM +1000, Jul 04 2003
Excerpt:NSW police halted a screening of the banned film Ken Park in Sydney last night.
About 500 people packed into Sydney's Balmain Town Hall last night for a screening of the controversially banned...
4 suspects released, but remain in detention
10:48 AM +1000, Jul 04 2003
Excerpt:
A US federal judge has reportedly rebuked the Justice Department for its unconvincing arguments that four terrorism suspects should be imprisoned until their trials. The rebuke is apparently a...
Officials bitten by MS Word information leaks
10:38 AM +1000, Jul 04 2003
Excerpt:
The BBC reports on several instances where government officials have accidentally leaked damaging information in revision logs and other "hidden" parts of Microsoft Word files.
"This is not 007...
Pakistan continues web censorship drive
10:32 AM +1000, Jul 04 2003
Excerpt:
Pakistan's state-run telecommunications agency has announced a new free web filtering client, but says it's continuing efforts to censor access to pornographic web sites by blocking traffic at the...
Pressure grows against HK sedition bill
10:26 AM +1000, Jul 04 2003
Excerpt:
Reuters says pressure is mounting on Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa to consider amendments to the controversial sedition and subversion bill, following massive protests earlier this week....
Supreme Court sides with govt on free speech
10:22 AM +1000, Jul 04 2003
Excerpt:
AP points out that the US Supreme Court has sided with the government - and against free speech - in every single first amendment case decided this year.
Among those scoring victories was The...
Sydney cinema screens banned film
08:28 PM +1000, Jul 03 2003
Excerpt:
A Sydney cinema is screening the film Ken Park despite a ban by the OFLC, says the ABC. The article doesn't name the cinema. Police say they'll enforce the law if the screening goes ahead....
Nigerian police beat journalists, arrest protesters
05:25 PM +1000, Jul 02 2003
Excerpt:
Nigerian police have beaten several journalists and arrested 88 demonstrators at a union strike in Abuja, according to AP. Police reportedly told one journalist they were beating him to stop him...
Laos jails journalists for 15 years
11:18 AM +1000, Jul 02 2003
Excerpt:
Three European journalists have been jailed for 15 years in Laos for supporting a rebel assassination, after weapons were found allegedly linking them to the murder of a security official. The...
Mailing lists, blogs get US libel protection?
11:05 AM +1000, Jul 02 2003
Excerpt:
Wired reports on a US appeals court ruling that the CDA extends libel protection to mailing list operators and perhaps bloggers. The decision is less dramatic than the headline suggests: it...