Anyone who has read The Handmaid's Tale likely remembers how the malevolent government in the book began to assert its control. It all began with national identity cards that stored all personal information electronically. These cards were then linked to banking and credit accounts. It became a trivial issue for "the powers that be" to shut off access to certain people or classes of people, forcing them to comply with government mandates in order to continue to eat. Those who attempted to run were easily tracked since access to just about everything in this world was controlled based on the ID card.

Well guess what? H.B. 418 which passed the House 261-161 mandates exactly that scenario. In a world where we have at least weekly reports of data piracy and identity theft, it seems counter intuitive to gather it all into one place so that it's even easier to compromise. These new ID cards, complete with RFID and "undefined" personal information encoding would be required to fly (despite ongoing lawsuits like John Gilmore's that attempt to force the government to reveal WHAT particular law mandates that we "show our papers" for domestic travel), required to enter many types of government buildings, etc.

How easy it would be to have a "glitch" that shut off access to "suspected terrorists." How about those who had passed an RFID checkpoint too close to the home of a "suspected terrorist?" Or even those who used a particular terminal in a cyber cafe that was linked to anonymous speech advocating US withdrawl from Iraq?

Far fetched? Go take a look at H.B. 418 at http://thomas.loc.gov.

Posted by mikki at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is interesting that after so long, the case of John Gilmore refusing to put up with back door legislation of a "domestic passport" is finally getting its due. Read more at "http://www.postgazette.com/pg/05058/462446.stm"

The Gilmore case is, if anything, about things unsaid. Gilmore -- and millions of other people -- are daily instructed to produce some manner of ID: a driver's license, a Social Security number, a phone number, date of birth. When Gilmore asked to see the rules explaining why his photo ID is necessary for airline security, his request was denied. The regulation under which the Transportation Safety Administration, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, instructs the airlines to collect such identification is classified as "Sensitive Security Information."

Posted by mikki at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A very sad day in the history of the Mac. Perhaps it's a coincidence that my Powerbook hard drive also died the same day.

The computer interface expert who launched the Macintosh project for Apple Computer dies of cancer at age 61.
[CNET News.com]

Posted by mikki at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And to think, we still have dipshit private corporation who insist on us providing our social security numbers in order to get service.

Backup tapes containing the financial information for 1.2 million government employee credit cards have gone missing. [CNET News.com]

Posted by mikki at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And once again it's the powerful Content Cartel vs. the Consumer. The FCC is supposed to be there to deal with allocation of scare broadcast spectrums. So why would they be working for the Cartel?

A Federal court today hears a challenge to the "broadcast flag" rules designed to deter widespread copying of digital TV broadcasts. The rules require that after July 2005 all devices handling broadcast digital programs must obey certain content protection standards. The lawsuit by a range of public interest groups argues the FCC did not have the authority to create such broad rules, which impact computers and the Internet as well as TVs. [Center for Democracy and Technology]

Posted by mikki at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Karl is right! What kind of a nincompoop set up THIS system? Oh, I know! I was there when the "mere users" were ignored in favor of the Intellectual Property Cartel in all of the ICANN and Pre-ICANN meetings. Of course, that makes this a totally logical flow of insanity. Be afraid

Under new laws cows infected with Mad Cow disease will get more privacy protection than people who register domain names.

Under these new laws the public won't be able to learn information about whether their meat supply is safe.

While under ICANN's "whois" policy, the name, address, and phone number of everyone, including children, must be published and made freely available to the predators of the world 24x7x365.

Sick cows get privacy backed by law, predators get an easy way to find and stalk children.

Wow, it is a mad, mad world!

Posted by mikki at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

See, this is where I get rather confused. Why would anyone think it would be a good idea to tag children and follow them around? Who in their right mind thinks that's somehow a good idea? A stalker perhaps? No, but a school system thought it was great. I'm just mind boggled that it took an outcry of this type of make it stop.

Victory for Students, Parents and Civil Liberties Groups

NOTE: This is a press release from the ACLU of Northern California that EFF is passing along for your information.

San Francisco - The Sutter-based company InCom announced last night, at a packed special school district meeting, that it would end its pilot program that required students to wear radio frequency identification badges that tracked the student's movements. The company pulled out when parents and civil liberties groups mobilized to end the program. On February 7, the ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) sent a letter to the school district urging the school officials to end the program after being contacted by the parents.

"We are pleased that InCom is pulling out -our children never should have been tagged like pieces of inventory or cattle," said Michele Tatro, one of the parents that fought to end the tracking program. "The RFID tags violated the students' privacy, they were demeaning, and it put them in danger."

"Monitoring children with RFID tags is a very bad idea. It treats children like livestock or shipment pallets, thereby breaching their right to dignity and privacy they have as human beings. Any small gain in administrative efficiency and security is not worth the money spent and the privacy and dignity lost," said Cédric Laurant, Policy Counsel with EPIC.

Dawn Cantrall, parent of a 7th grader added: "We are proud that we stopped it here in Sutter and we will continue to fight to make sure that no child is ever forced to have an RFID badge. As parents, it is our duty to keep our children safe and it is not safe to have tracking devices in student badges."

"This is a tremendous victory for the students and families of Sutter," said Nicole Ozer, Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director of the ACLU-NC. "However, this is not just an issue affecting school children. The potential use of RFIDs in other identity documents, such as driver's licenses and medical cards, should be of concern to all Californians. RFIDs in identity documents is an issue that requires a statewide response and we plan to encourage legislative action on this front," she added.

"We're happy for the kids in Sutter, and grateful to those parents who stood up for family privacy and security. We hope it will be a wake-up call to parents and kids across the nation," said Lee Tien of EFF.

The tracking program was introduced on January 18th without any notification to the parents. Students in the small farm town of Sutter were required to wear ID cards around their necks with their picture, name, grade, school name, class year and four-digit school ID number and the RFID tags. Parents only found out about the program when their children came home wearing the tracking devices.

Here is more information about RFIDs.

Contacts:

Annalee Newitz
Media Coordinator/Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
annalee@eff.org

Stella Richardson
Media Relations Director
ACLU of Northern California
srichardson@aclunc.org

Posted by mikki at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm not exactly certain why the story of the 9 month pregnant woman who had to fight off and kill a nutcase who wanted to steal her unborn child bothered me so much. (Located at http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/14/woman.attacked.ap/index.html?section=cnn_topstories) The story truly yanked at something primal inside of me. The mix of emotions is difficult to separate, but here's my best shot.

Most people realize that I am a mother, and as such would do anything within my power, including give my life for my child. It's something that you hear from most mothers. The idea that a pregnant woman would defend her unborn child in this way is not surprising, although being 9 months pregnant and physically defending oneself is not easy. What IS surprising to me is the recent rash of women who SO want a baby that they would kill another human being and cut the child from her womb.

Why in the world would someone do this? What possible drive is SO strong that one MUST have a child; a child of one's own ethnicity (if not one's own genes)? I don't buy the argument that women are driven by something internal to become a mother. I realize I will likely get flamed for this notion, but I think that a lot of the issue is external pressure.

I remember the B.C. (Before Child) time when I was perfectly happy, and feeling perfectly fulfilled with a uterine occupancy rate of zero. Perfect strangers would tell me that I would never be complete without a child. Wouldn't be complete? I was then pretty complete in my relationship with my husband. No man that I had ever known had been told that HE would not be complete without a child, however plenty of men AND women were quick to tell me about my lack of completeness.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that "society is to blame." Far from it. Insane people who believe that killing others because they covet something as personal as their unborn child have no possible excuse that lies outside their own twisted psyche. But I do think we need to look carefully at a society where so many people spend billions of dollars per year for in vitro fertilization, people travel the world to adopt children that look like them, and seem completely surprised when a married couple chooses to remain childless.

A woman's completeness is NOT measured by her uterine production rate.

Posted by mikki at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here we go again. Why is it that these people continually try to fix something that isn't broken by implementing a system that is SO easily broken? We will drift into complacency, believing that our completely flawed system of national IDs will protect us from the "bad people" while completely ignoring the fact that such a system can so easily be cheated. Then, of course, it will be much more difficult to oust the "bad guys" from their total assimilation into the system. But no, since this type of a "band aid" measure will help the unthinking masses feel more secure, it is politically expedient.

Recent congressional vote on standardized, electronically readable driver's licenses raises fears about imminence of national IDs.
Photos: Biometrics on guard [CNET News.com]

Posted by mikki at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why not just lock tracking collars on the kids? That way they can't take em off? What's next?

Parents and Civil Liberties Groups Urge School District to Terminate Use of Tracking Devices

NOTE: This is a press release from the ACLU of Northern California that EFF is recirculating for your information.

San Francisco - Parents in a northern California public school district and civil liberties groups are urging a school district to terminate the mandatory use of Radio Frequency Identification tags (RFIDs) by students. Several civil liberties groups, including the ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) sent a letter today expressing alarm at the Brittan School District's use of mandatory ID badges that include a RFID device that tracks the students' movements. The device transmits private information to a computer on campus whenever a student passes under one of the scanners. The ID badges also include the student's name, photo, grade, school name, class year and the four-digit school ID number. Students are required to prominently display the badges by wearing them around the neck at all times.

"Forcing my child to be tracked with a RFID device - without our consent or knowledge - is a complete invasion of our privacy," said Michael and Dawn Cantrall. "Our 7th grader came home wearing the ID badge prominently displayed around her neck- if a predator wanted to target my child, the mandatory school ID card has just made that task easier." The Cantralls filed a formal complaint against the Brittan Elementary School Board in Sutter, California on January 30th after meeting with several school officials.

In a letter dated February 7, sent to the Brittan Board of Trustees, the civil liberties groups "urge the school board to recognize the serious safety and civil liberties implications" and call the for the School Board to "terminate this ill-advised test immediately."

"We are sending the letter today because a School Board meeting is scheduled for tomorrow night and we want to make sure that the District reconsiders the issue," said Nicole Ozer, Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director of the ACLU-NC. "RFID technology is inappropriate for use in schools. The badges jeopardize the safety and security of children by broadcasting identity and location information to anyone with a chip reader and subjects students to demeaning tracking of their movements."

"The monitoring of children with RFID tags is comparable to the tracking of cattle, shipment pallets, or very dangerous criminals in high-security prisons. Compelling children to be constantly tracked with RFID-trackable identity badges breaches their right to privacy and dignity as human beings. Forcing children to wear badges around their necks displaying such sensitive information as their name, picture, grade and school exposes them to potential discrimination since the name of their school may disclose their religious beliefs or social class," said Cédric Laurant, Policy Counsel with EPIC.

Jeffrey and Michele Tatro, parents of a thirteen-year-old student at Brittan Elementary School, added: "It is our goal that no child in the United States be tagged or tracked. We want it to be stopped here, in Sutter California, and we don't want any child to be tracked anywhere. Our children are not pieces of inventory."

"It is dehumanizing to force these children to wear RFIDs, and their parents are rightfully outraged," said Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Lee Tien. "We are doing everything we can to support the parents in this fight to protect student privacy."

Get more information about RFIDs in schools.

Contacts:

Stella Richardson
Media Relations Director
ACLU of Northern California
srichardson@aclunc.org

Annalee Newitz
Media Coordinator/Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
annalee@eff.org

Posted by mikki at 05:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm sorry, but as a lawyer, my confidence in "the system" gets pretty much destroyed when I see stories like this. It makes me wonder what total dweeb attorney took a case like this, and what the idiot judge could POSSIBLY be thinking.

This CNN Story pretty much made me want to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head. Two teenage girls thought they'd do something really nice and baked homemade cookies, wrapped them in little packages with little hearts, and brought them to their neighbors. Some worthless imbecile got "so scared" that she had to go to the hospital. I guess that when the census comes to her house, or the Jehovah's Witnesses, or even the damn mailman or UPS, she winds up in the hospital too? I wonder if they also get sued, or if she saves it up to go after teenage girls trying to do something nice?

What's worse, the families offered to pay this stupid beast's 900.00 medical bills (I wonder if that included psychiatric testing that this 49 year old woman obviously needs). The beast declined because "their apologies were not sincere." Oh man. So let's use the legal system because people's apologies for doing something nice are not sincere enough for a psycho who can't handle chocolate chip and sugar cookies.

And some judge actually awarded the psycho the $900.00 and let this travesty of justice play out. I wonder how much the poor girls' families had to pay their lawyer to defend them against this stupidity. I also wonder if OUR insurance premiums for our homeowners insurance will go up or we'll now have a clause inserted that says they don't pay if we try to do nice things for our neighbors and they turn out to be mentally ill and sue us for it.

Posted by mikki at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, this is indeed a very good question. But perhaps maybe a more pertinent question would be, why do Mac Users STILL have to use Windows crap? I've come across MANY web sites that require a Windows box for them to work right. Wasn't part of the whole idea of web based applications CROSS PLATFORM interoperability?

One of the ridiculous applications that still requires Windoze is PayPal's shipping label printing program. Obviously, this is a ridiculous limitation given that the USPS site to which PayPal supposedly merely provides a front end to, works just fine with Macs. So, rather than continue to use my husband's ONE machine in the whole house that runs Windoze, I bought Virtual PC. Within its first month of running on my Mac, it broke with a "boot.ini" fatal error that could not be fixed even after deinstalling and then reinstalling the software. So I guess not only does Windows itself still suck, but even its emulators suck.

In an article detailing his experiences with both Macs and Windows-based PCs, SF Gate columnist Mark Morford asks, "Why Does Windows Still Suck? Why do PC users put up with so many viruses and worms? Why isn't everyone on a Mac?" Morford goes on to say: "As every Windows user knows, PCs are ever waging a losing battle with a stunningly vicious array of malware and worms and viruses, all aimed at exploiting one of about ten thousand security flaws and holes in Microsoft Windows... [MacMinute]

Posted by mikki at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is just plain HILARIOUS

The caption to this photo from the United Church of Christ reads:

SpongeBob meets with the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president, in his office. Explains Thomas, "No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, SpongeBob, you're welcome here."

This one of series of photos illustrating SpongeBob's visit to UCC after his encounter with the "Focus on Family" Group.

A concerned reader asks:

"Infringement? Dilution? Or just a sponge in a church?"

Posted by mikki at 04:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)