T-shirt with picture of armed robot endangers British aviation system:


This poor guy tried to board a BA flight at Heathrow terminal 5 but was turned back and told to change out of his t-shirt, which featured a Transformer robot carrying a gun -- a robot with a gun that apparently posed a threat to flight safety.

Go through security, get pulled to the side. I'm wearing a French Connection Transformers t-shirt. Bloke starts joking with me is that Megatron. Then he explains that since Megatron is holding a gun, I'm not allowed to fly. WTF? It's a 40 foot tall cartoon robot with a gun as an arm. There is no way this shirt is offensive in any way, and what I'm going to use the shirt to pretend I have a gun?

Link

(Thanks, PT!)

Posted by mikki at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Japanese homeless woman evicted from closet - CNN.com:


TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- A homeless woman who sneaked into a man's house and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested in Japan after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.

Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man's closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday.

The resident of the home installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.

One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home Thursday after he had left, and he called police believing it was a burglar. However, when they arrived they found the door locked and all windows closed.

"We searched the house ... checking everywhere someone could possibly hide," Itakura said. "When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side."

The woman told police she had no place to live and first sneaked into the man's house about a year ago when he left it unlocked.

The closet is part of a Japanese-style room, one of several rooms in his one-story house where the man lived alone -- or so he had thought.

Police were investigating how she managed to go in and out of the house unnoticed, as well as details of her life inside the closet, and if she had taken anything else besides food.

She had moved a mattress into the small closet space and apparently even took showers, Itakura said, calling the woman "neat and clean."

Posted by mikki at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

UnionLeader.com - New Hampshire news - Parrot that flew the coop reunited with Salem owner - Friday, May. 30, 2008:


PELHAM – A parrot that had flown the coop earlier in the week was reunited with its owner at the police department yesterday.

Julie Galvin of Salem was brought to tears when animal control officer Allison Downing brought out Bailey, a 21-week-old African Grey parrot.

Bailey went missing late Sunday afternoon when a sliding door at Galvin's North Main Street home was left open.

Previously, open windows and doors weren't a major concern, since the employees at Zoo Creatures in Plaistow told Galvin that Bailey, who was a Mother's Day gift from her husband Kevin, couldn't fly because feathers needed for flight had been clipped.

That didn't prevent Bailey from covering a distance of about 10 miles by Wednesday. Several pet store employees told Galvin that he'd likely stay close, Galvin said.

"They all said he'd stay near one area and cling to a tree," she said. "We don't know what he was thinking."

Galvin searched the local area for hours each day beginning at dawn while putting up posters and asking neighbors for help.

"The whole neighborhood was wonderful," she said.

Galvin recalled Bailey swooping out the slider door and then heading straight up the street as she tried to run after it.

"I didn't think I was going to see him again," Galvin said. "I haven't slept in days."

On Wednesday evening, Downing was called to a home on Ledge Road, where a family reported that a large bird flew right into their garage.

After bringing the bird into the department, Downing put out a New England-wide teletype message to area departments seeking a missing bird of its kind.

The following morning Salem police called back with the prior report Galvin had entered, and Downing contacted her and confirmed it was hers.

"Isn't he a love?" she said as Bailey flitted his wings while stretching out in a cage. "I can't believe you guys found him. It's like she found my kid."

Posted by mikki at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It might take some time, but eventually you just stop doing that which is unpleasant. And flying is certainly that these days, between the prices and the way we are treated, it's a wonder anyone flies.

Americans take 41 million fewer flights, survey shows - CNN.com:


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nearly half of American air travelers would fly more if it were easier, and more than one-fourth said they skipped at least one air trip in the past 12 months because of the hassles involved, according to an industry survey.

With millions of flights not booked, the travel industry has lost $18.1 billion, according to an industry survey.

The Travel Industry Association, which commissioned the survey released Thursday, estimated that the 41 million forgone trips cost the travel industry $18.1 billion -- including $9.4 billion to airlines and $5.6 billion to hotels. Plus, it cost federal, state and local authorities $4.2 billion in taxes in the past 12 months.

When 28 percent of air travelers avoided an average of 1.3 trips each, that resulted in 29 million leisure trips and 12 million business trips not being taken, the researchers estimated.

The survey results did not address whether travelers chose alternate transportation to pursue any of the journeys they didn't take by plane. The association estimated overall travel industry revenue at $740 billion.

Roger Dow, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based association, said the research "should be a wake-up call to America's policy leaders that the time for meaningful air system reform is now."

"The air travel crisis has hit a tipping point -- more than 100,000 travelers each day are voting with their wallets by choosing to avoid trips," Dow said in a statement.

That's a big blow to airlines, many of which are losing money as the industry struggles with soaring fuel costs. Carriers have raised fares, added fees, cut capacity and scaled back expansion plans, and some small airlines have declared bankruptcy, while Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. announced plans to combine in an effort to reduce costs.

In all, 44 percent of the 1,003 air travelers surveyed by phone from May 6 to May 13 said they would take more air trips each year if airport hassles could be reduced or eliminated. The survey, conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates Inc. and The Winston Group, had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

People who flew more than five times in the past 12 months were more likely to describe air travel as frustrating, at 52 percent, compared with 33 percent of infrequent travelers, defined as people who flew one or two round trips in 12 months, according to the survey.

More than half of respondents said either efficiency or reliability is getting worse, 60 percent said the system is deteriorating, and 56 percent said flying is the "bad" or "worst" part of travel -- though 62 percent said air travel security is improving.

Posted by mikki at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Law.com - Lawyer Sues Delta Air Lines Over Delayed Trip, 'Rude' Treatment:


A New York City lawyer has sued Delta Air Lines Inc. for nearly $1 million, claiming the company's incompetent and rude employees made his 80-year-old mother's birthday trip to South America a stressful, costly horror.

Attorney Richard Roth says not only did he and his family arrive in Buenos Aires, Argentina, almost three days late, he had to spend unplanned thousands of dollars on food, hotels and transportation, and buy tickets for another airline.

And because Delta misplaced his luggage, Roth's lawsuit says, he had to buy new clothes for himself and family members after arriving in Buenos Aires.

Though he was promised Delta would bring his luggage, Roth says he had to drive to the airport in Buenos Aires to look for and retrieve his bags himself.

During the ordeal, Roth's court papers say, several Delta employees were "nasty," "rude," "obnoxious" and "totally disrespectful." Those who were courteous were generally ineffectual in assisting him, the court papers say.

A Delta spokeswoman, Betsy Talton, said Tuesday that she could not comment on pending litigation.

Roth, 49, of Scarsdale, N.Y., said he arranged for his mother to fly to her native Argentina during the 2007 Christmas holidays. He says he and his family were scheduled to fly from the Westchester County Airport the evening of Dec. 20.

Roth said he was with his mother, his wife and his teenage son and daughter. They were to meet a 20-year-old cousin in Atlanta and take a connecting flight to Buenos Aires where they would celebrate his mother's 80th birthday.

In Atlanta, say court papers filed Friday in Manhattan's state Supreme Court, a gate agent refused to let Roth and his family onto the jet for the connecting flight, although the plane was sitting at the gate with the door open.

Roth says his cousin, already on the plane, told him by cell phone there were several empty seats. When Roth asked the agent to speak to the pilot, he replied, "The pilot is not in charge here. I am. All the pilot does is fly the plane."

Roth's court papers say that after he and his family spent two nights in Atlanta, a ticket agent told him Delta could not get him to Argentina before Jan. 8. So they flew to Florida, spent a night there and took an Aerolineas Argentina flight to Buenos Aires after buying one-way tickets, court papers say.

Roth said he and his family returned to New York aboard a Delta flight on Dec. 31.

Roth said Tuesday he wants $21,000 for out-of-pocket expenses and another $275,000 in compensatory damages for emotional distress. He said he also wants punitive damages which would be at least three times the compensatory amount.

Posted by mikki at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Supreme Court OKs Cellphone Unlocking Suit | Threat Level from Wired.com:


The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday dashed a bid by T-Mobile and AT&T to stave off a class-action lawsuit challenging the carriers' policies against unlocking mobile phones.
The justices declined to review an October decision by the California Supreme Court that cleared the way for a lawsuit that attorneys claimed could represent "millions" of California customers.
In response to similar lawsuits, Verizon and Sprint, both CDMA carriers, have agreed to provide the software code to unlock cellphones after customers nationwide have completed their original contract, attorneys said. "That was the compromise we ended up with to get the cases settled," said California attorney Robert Bramson, one of the lawyers suing carriers T-Mobile and AT&T.
T-Mobile and AT&T fought the lawsuit all the way to the nation's high court. The two carriers, on the GSM network, are accused of unfair business practices by locking down their phones to their service plans. Last year, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington listed cell phone unlocking as one of six new exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.
That change, however, left unclear whether carriers were responsible for unlocking the handsets.
The high court's decision sets aside language in the terms-of-service agreement requiring aggrieved AT&T and T-Mobile customers to submit to binding arbitration instead of going to court. The phone carriers urged the justices to require that their customers honor the contracts they had signed. The lower courts had declared those contracts "unconscionable."
The case the U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Tuesday, if successful, could force AT&T to unlock the coveted iPhone. AT&T is Apple's exclusive phone provider. "They may be more unwilling than otherwise because the iPhone is such a big seller," Bramson said.
The suits also prompted all four of the phone providers to reduce the fees charged to costumers who terminate a mobile phone contract before it expires.
Still, all four carriers face litigation to reduce those new, pro-rated fees even further. AT&T's plan, implemented Monday, is similar to the other carriers' opt-out schedule. Each month, an account holder's normal $175 charge to back out of the two-year contract is reduced by $5.
"Pro-rated is a step in the right direction," said California attorney David Franklin, one of the lawyers suing the carriers.
Passed in 1998 as an anti-piracy measure, the DMCA makes it illegal to "circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access" to copyrighted material – in this case the firmware that locks a phone to a provider's network. The law tasks the U.S. Register of Copyrights and the Librarian of Congress with investigating how the anti-circumvention provision could hurt legitimate users, and then carving out appropriate exemptions every three years.
The cell phone unlocking exemption covers cases where cell phone software locks are circumvented "for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network."

Posted by mikki at 09:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by mikki at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shopper has unfriendly encounter with scorpion - CNN.com:


BARBOURSVILLE, West Virginia (AP) -- One young shopper at a Wal-Mart in West Virginia had to watch out for more than falling prices.

A 12-year-old girl picking up a seedless watermelon from a bin was stung Sunday by a tan, inch-long scorpion that had apparently stowed away in a shipment from Mexico.

Megan Templeton, of Barboursville, was taken to the hospital as a precaution but later released. Her father, William Templeton, said the pain was a little worse than a bee sting.


He initially did not believe his daughter when she said she had been stung by a scorpion, but then he saw it scurry underneath a box. It was captured by Wal-Mart employees.

Posted by mikki at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If true, this is highly disturbing. Here one would "only" get a visit from the FBI

UK set to deport Master's student whose Master's degree research led him to look up Al Qaeda info - ratted out by University of Nottingham:


Academics at the UK's Nottingham University were arrested as terrorists for downloading Al Qaeda documents from a US government server in the course of research into a Master's degree convering terrorist tactics. The two UK-born profs were released, but the student faces deportation to Algeria under the Terrorism Act, where he believes he will be tortured. The university -- which encouraged its staffers to rat out people they thought were involved in researching terrorism -- refuses to acknowledge that anything is wrong with any of this.

Despite his Nottingham University supervisors insisting the materials were directly relevant to his research, Rizwaan Sabir, 22, was held for nearly a week under the Terrorism Act, accused of downloading the materials for illegal use. The student had obtained a copy of the al-Qaida training manual from a US government website for his research into terrorist tactics.

The case highlights what lecturers are claiming is a direct assault on academic freedom led by the government which, in its attempt to establish a "prevent agenda" against terrorist activity, is putting pressure on academics to become police informers.

Sabir was arrested on May 14 after the document was found by a university staff member on an administrator's computer. The administrator, Hisham Yezza, an acquaintance of Sabir, had been asked by the student to print the 1,500-page document because Sabir could not afford the printing fees. The pair were arrested under the Terrorism Act, Sabir's family home was searched and their computer and mobile phones seized. They were released uncharged six days later but Yezza, who is Algerian, was immediately rearrested on unrelated immigration charges and now faces deportation.

Link

Posted by mikki at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

International copyright talks seek BitTorrent-killer laws | The Register:


A new international trade agreement could seek to strengthen criminal sanctions against BitTorrent tracker sites that claim not to profit from internet users sharing music, movies and software.
Many major tracker sites say advertising revenues and user donations are used to pay server and bandwidth costs. The operators of the Pirate Bay, currently on trial in Sweden, claim their chief motive is to destroy copyright law.

Rights holder organisations charge that BitTorrent administrators make a handsome living exploiting copyright material online.
Now, a discussion paper circulated among the US, EU, Canada, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and Switzerland regarding the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been leaked online. It includes a proposal to ditch any requirements under national law that copyright infringers must be seeking to profit in order to be judged criminal.
Plans for ACTA were announced last Autumn, but negotiations have taken place behind closed doors. The discussion paper lists "the types of provisions that could be included in the agreement". The Office of the US Trade Representative's (USTR) ACTA announcment from October last year is here. It makes no mention of internet piracy, although it's reported that the USTR drafted the leaked discussion paper.
The document suggests "criminal sanctions to be applied to [Intellectual Property Rights] infringements on a commercial scale [where there are] significant willful infringements without motivation for financial gain to such an extent as to prejudicially affect the copyright owner (e.g. internet piracy)".
Governments should apply "deterrent-level" penalties against criminal copyright infringment, the discussion paper suggests, as well as powers to seize and destroy equipment.
For ordinary filesharers accused of civil infringement, the ACTA proposals include plans for rights holders to claim compensation, "including measures to overcome the problem of rights holders not being able to get sufficient compensation due to difficulty in assessing the full extent of the damage". In the landmark successful civil prosecution of Jammie Thomas by the Recording Industry Ass. of America last year, the jury awarded $9250 in damages for each of the 24 songs in her Kazaa-shared directory, a total of $222,000.
ISPs might be enouraged to read that while an ACTA framework would hope to encourage them to cooperate with rights holders, it would offer safeguards from liability in exchange.
ACTA might also seek to reanimate the corpse of DRM software by proposing legal "remedies against circumvention of technological protection measures used by copyright owners and the trafficking of circumvention devices".
At time of writing the EU had not responded to a request for clarification of its involvement in the process. The Canwest News Service reports that the proposals are expected to be discussed at the G8 meeting in Tokyo in July. A European Commission fact sheet released in October contradicts this, stating that ACTA will not be pursued through the G8.
Signs of an emerging international copyright consensus abound already, however. The so-called "three strikes" plan to combat filesharing by forcing ISPs to cooperate is being pushed simultaneously in the UK, France and Japan.
You can grab a copy of the ACTA discussion paper here at Wikileaks. ®

Posted by mikki at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Customs slip cannabis into passenger's bag - CNN.com:


passenger who landed at Tokyo's Narita airport over the weekend has ended up with a surprise souvenir courtesy of customs officials -- a package of cannabis.

A customs official hid the package in a suitcase belonging to a passenger arriving from Hong Kong as part of an exercise for sniffer dogs on Sunday, Reuters.com reported.

However, staff then lost track of the drugs and suitcase during the exercise, a spokeswoman for Tokyo customs said.

Customs regulations specify that a training suitcase be used for such exercises, but the official had used passengers' suitcases for similar purposes in the past, domestic media reported.

Tokyo customs has asked anyone who finds the package to return it.

Posted by mikki at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is going to be quite the interesting case. How can a defendant get a good defense lawyer and mount a challenge to charges if all of their assets are frozen?

11th Circuit to Consider Whether Right to Counsel Is Lost When Assets Are Frozen:


For six years, Kerri Kaley worked at a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, selling the company's surgical innovations to hospitals. But she and about two dozen other salespeople of J&J's Ethicon Endosurgery got into trouble selling inventory that hospitals no longer wanted on the gray market, an indictment charged. Now the New York woman and her husband are the poster children in an appeal pending before the 11th Circuit on the legal standard for pre-trial seizure of a defendant's assets.

Posted by mikki at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ford dealership uses bigoted radio ads to sell cars:


Keiffe and Sons, a Ford dealership in Mojave, California, has a new radio ad in which they try to court Christian car buyers by announcing that they believe that non-Christians in America should "sit down and shut up."

["Did you know that there are people in this country who want prayer out of schools, "Under God" out of the Pledge, and "In God We Trust" to be taken off our money?"]

"But did you know that 86% of Americans say they believe in God? Since we all know that 86 out of every 100 of us are Christians, who believe in God, we at Keiffe & Sons Ford wonder why we don't tell the other 14% to sit down and shut up. I guess I just offended 14% of the people who are listening to this message. Well, if that is the case then I say that's tough, this is America folks, it's called free speech. None of us at Keiffe & Sons Ford is afraid to speak out. Keiffe & Sons Ford on Sierra Highway in Mojave and Rosamond, if we don't see you today, by the grace of God, we'll be here tomorrow."

Link

(via Pharyngula)

Posted by mikki at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tech Companies Called on The Carpet in DC. Again.:

Google, Yahoo!, and Cisco faced questions from the subcommittee on human rights (part of the Senate Judiciary Committee) about their role in China’s Internet censorship system. Cisco was in particularly hot water after an internal document surfaced - it discusses how Cisco technology can “Combat ‘Falun Gong’ evil religion and other hostiles.” Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) asked the tough questions and had a great response to the suggestion that a filtered ‘Net (abetted by U.S. tech companies) is better than none - “I heard that argument when companies were doing business in South Africa during apartheid.” Filtering’s in the news - from Thailand to the Gaza Strip to Iran - so this hearing is timely.

Three quick observations: first, and most troubling, is that the collaborative effort (led by the Center for Democracy & Technology) to develop a code of conduct for tech companies operating in repressive countries has so far produced… a press release. And the tensions are showing: Human Rights Watch, a participant in the effort, criticized its pace (as did Durbin), noting that there’s significant opposition to independent monitoring for compliance with the code. Second, the Cisco slide looks bad, but it really just confirms what we already know - China uses the company’s tech for filtering, and Cisco’s employees are trying to drum up additional business based on that. (I used to work for a tech company, and if you know the client has certain key “business objectives,” you put those in your presentation - especially if it’s an internal one that tells you how to pitch the client.) Third, the business objective angle highlights a tough problem: what limits should tech companies observe in places like China, Burma, or Vietnam? (The companies themselves are a bit hypocritical: they want to pass the buck to the government to regulate their operations abroad - in theory - so they can avoid hard policy choices, but don’t really want any constraints in practice.) I’m slowly writing on exactly this topic…

Posted by mikki at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok.. I have a big problem with being tagged without my permission. If you do also, make it known to the airlines that they really ought to TELL US and give us the option to opt out, and take the chance that they'll lose the luggage twice :-)

RFID tags, pay per bag, and they STILL lose 'em - Kenzoid's Autonomous Zone:


RFID tags, pay per bag, and they STILL lose 'em

I was reading an article this morning on the new American Airlines luggage charge (THAT's gonna go over well), and noticed an aside starting on page 3...Las Vegas is using RFIDs in outgoing luggage tags now to help move bags more efficiently.
Now, I'm not saying I'm even completely against this, used correctly...but I had no idea that it was occuring. THAT I don't like...especially since I have a bag sitting in the hallway that just came back from Vegas! Checking...nope, no I'm an arphid note on it.
But oh yeah...it's there:

Nice, eh? And I carried this around (out of airport, past who knows what kind of scanner, on transit, etc.) without knowing about it. And of course, they're all already sync'd with a person's ID directly. Hrrrmmmm.
And as for slippery slope...from the article: This new system "won't solve every problem, but it's certainly played a part in allowing this airport to operate efficiently," she said, "and it's got the potential to do even more once it's rolled out [on] a wider basis."
I bet it does.
UPDATE: to clarify, I changed "...in outgoing luggage now..." to "...in outgoing luggage tags now..." above, after the post made it onto boingboing (woot!). It was a typo, and the photos make it clear what I'm talking about, but apparently people thought it worth mentioning. *grin* Sorry for any confusion.

Posted by mikki at 08:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Uprooting of the DNS Root:


The folks at Renesys pointed out earlier this week some interesting activity surrounding the L-root name server, highlighting some activity that should give us all yet another reason to be concerned about the security and integrity of the Internet DNS... considering that a great deal of malware today tends to corrupt the DNS resolution path in order to further exploit compromised end-systems, and that corruption, or any other actual end-system compromise, might well be unnecessary if the root were compromised -- well, think of the possibilities! More...

Posted by mikki at 05:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

EFF forces Lockheed to withdraw trademark claim on B-24 bomber:


Great news: The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Corynne McSherry arm-twisted Lockheed Martin into giving up on their crazy attempt to stop people from posting 3D models of the WWII bombers that they built at government expense, claiming a trademark in the design:

Last month we told you about Lockheed Martin's effort to use trademark infringement claims to cause the removal of digital images of classic military aircraft from TurboSquid, a stock images site. The central mark at issue was the term “B-24,” which Lockheed managed to register as a trademark for use in connection with scale models of airplanes. We sent an open letter to Lockheed’s licensing agency, demanding that they withdraw their improper objections. We're pleased to report that Lockheed has decided to withdraw its claim, and TurboSquid is putting the images back up forthwith.

This is a good outcome, but the problem remains. Because online communication and commerce often depends on intermediaries like TurboSquid, who may not have the resources or the inclination to investigate trademark infringement claims, it is much too easy for trademark owners like Lockheed to ignore fair use and shut down legitimate content. And not every target of improper claims is going to have the resources to push back.

(Thanks, John!)

See also: WWII Bomber: "Trademark Infringement"

Posted by mikki at 09:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fraud-prevention pitchman becomes ID theft victim - CNN.com:


SAN JOSE, California (AP) -- Todd Davis has dared criminals for two years to try stealing his identity: Ads for his fraud-prevention company, LifeLock, even offer his Social Security number next to his smiling mug.


Now, LifeLock customers in Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia are suing Davis, claiming his service didn't work as promised and he knew it wouldn't, because the service had failed even him.

Attorney David Paris said he found records of other people applying for or receiving driver's licenses at least 20 times using Davis' Social Security number, though some of the applications may have been rejected because data in them didn't match what the Social Security Administration had on file.

Davis acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that his stunt has led to at least 87 instances in which people have tried to steal his identity, and one succeeded: a guy in Texas who duped an online payday loan operation last year into giving him $500 using Davis' Social Security number.

Paris said the fact Davis' records were compromised at all supports the claim that Tempe, Arizona-based LifeLock doesn't provide the comprehensive protection its advertisements say it does.

"It's further evidence of the ineffectiveness of the services that LifeLock advertises," said Paris, who is lead attorney on the three new lawsuits, the latest of which was filed this month.

Davis learned about the fraud in Texas when the payday-loan outfit called to collect on the loan, he said. He didn't get an alert beforehand because the company didn't go through one of the three major credit bureaus before approving the transaction.

Davis said it's possible driver's licenses have been issued to other people in his name because of the widespread availability of his personal information -- and because of what he described as the flimsy mechanisms in place to report that kind of fraud.

Paris noted that LifeLock charges $10 a month to set fraud alerts with credit bureaus, even though consumers can do it themselves for free.

But Davis stands by his company and his advertising gimmick, which has appeared in newspapers and on billboards, radio and MTV. He even broadcasts it by bullhorn on walking tours through crowded downtowns.

"There's nothing on my actual credit report about uncollected funds, no outstanding tickets or warrants or anything," he said. "There's nothing to indicate my identity has been successfully compromised other than the one instance. I know I'm taking a slightly higher risk. But I'll take my risk for the tremendous benefit we're bringing to society and to consumers."

The lawsuits, for which Paris is seeking class-action status, highlight the fundamental limits on how much security identity-theft companies can provide.

Companies like LifeLock can help guard against only certain types of financial fraud by helping consumers set up alerts with credit bureaus, which inform them when someone tries to open a new line of credit or boost their credit limit to finance a buying binge, for example.

The services don't guard against many types of identity theft such as use of a stolen Social Security number on a job application or for medical services, or even the instance of an arrestee giving police a stolen Social Security number to shield his own identity.

LifeLock is also being sued in Arizona over its $1 million service guarantee, which the plaintiffs claim is misleading because it only covers a defect in LifeLock's service, and in California by the Experian credit bureau. Experian accuses LifeLock of deceiving consumers about the breadth of its protection and abusing the system for attaching fraud alerts to credit reports.

Security experts say complaints about the company reinforce the time-honored wisdom of keeping your Social Security number secret.

"There's been a lot of marketing, a lot of hype about LifeLock," said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization. "The question is, 'How much protection does it really buy you?"'

"There is no company that can guarantee they can protect you (completely) against identity theft," Stephens said. "Absolutely nobody can do that."

Posted by mikki at 09:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We need a privacy bill of rights:


Bruce Schneier's latest Wired column is a stirring call-to-arms for a comprehensive data-privacy law:

Who controls our data controls our lives.

It's true. Whoever controls our data can decide whether we can get a bank loan, on an airplane or into a country. Or what sort of discount we get from a merchant, or even how we're treated by customer support. A potential employer can, illegally in the U.S., examine our medical data and decide whether or not to offer us a job. The police can mine our data and decide whether or not we're a terrorist risk. If a criminal can get hold of enough of our data, he can open credit cards in our names, siphon money out of our investment accounts, even sell our property. Identity theft is the ultimate proof that control of our data means control of our life.

We need to take back our data.

Our data is a part of us. It's intimate and personal, and we have basic rights to it. It should be protected from unwanted touch.

We need a comprehensive data privacy law. This law should protect all information about us, and not be limited merely to financial or health information. It should limit others' ability to buy and sell our information without our knowledge and consent. It should allow us to see information about us held by others, and correct any inaccuracies we find. It should prevent the government from going after our information without judicial oversight. It should enforce data deletion, and limit data collection, where necessary. And we need more than token penalties for deliberate violations.

Link

Posted by mikki at 07:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Wiltshire | Vandals in attack at Stonehenge:


Vandals in attack at Stonehenge

Suspected souvenir hunters broke into Stonehenge and vandalised the ancient monument, English Heritage said.
A small chip the size of a 10p piece was taken from the side of the Heel Stone with a screwdriver and hammer.
English Heritage said further damage was prevented by security guards who spotted the two men at the 5,000-year-old site in Wiltshire.
Police believe the men could be the same two people caught on CCTV acting suspiciously a few days earlier.

Posted by mikki at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lost parrot tells veterinarian his address:


TOKYO (AP) - When Yosuke the parrot flew out of his cage and got lost, he did exactly what he had been taught _ recite his name and address to a stranger willing to help.

Police rescued the African grey parrot two weeks ago from a neighbor's roof in the city of Nagareyama, near Tokyo. After spending a night at the station, he was transferred to a nearby veterinary hospital while police searched for clues, local policeman Shinjiro Uemura said.

He kept mum with the cops, but began chatting after a few days with the vet.

"I'm Mr. Yosuke Nakamura," the bird told the veterinarian, according to Uemura. The parrot also provided his full home address, down to the street number, and even entertained the hospital staff by singing songs.

"We checked the address, and what do you know, a Nakamura family really lived there. So we told them we've found Yosuke," Uemura said.

The Nakamura family told police they had been teaching the bird its name and address for about two years.

But Yosuke apparently wasn't keen on opening up to police officials.

"I tried to be friendly and talked to him, but he completely ignored me," Uemura said.

Posted by mikki at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Naked pilot, flight attendant arrested in woods:


HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - An airline pilot was found hiding behind a shed wearing only flip-flops and a wristwatch as a nighttime romp in the woods with a flight attendant ended with both under arrest, police said.

Jeffrey Paul Bradford, 24, and Adrianna Grace Connor, 24, both employees of Pinnacle Airlines Inc., were at a diner on the outskirts of Harrisburg on Sunday night before they apparently decided to walk into the woods, police said.

"They told the officer they wanted to go do it in the woods, essentially," said Lower Swatara Township police Sgt. Richard Brandt. "That's the best answer they had."

The two somehow became separated, and people who live in the neighborhood summoned police around 9:30 p.m., saying they had seen a naked man and an intoxicated woman.

A helicopter with heat-seeking equipment was called in, and Bradford was discovered hiding behind a shed shortly before midnight.

Bradford, of Pittsburgh, was charged with indecent exposure, public drunkenness and other offenses. Connor, of Belleville, Mich., was charged with theft from a motor vehicle, public drunkenness and other offenses; police said she took a flashlight from a neighbor's vehicle.

A spokesman for the Memphis, Tenn., airline said the two were suspended while the company investigates.

The office of District Justice Michael John Smith, where Bradford and Connor were arraigned, said they were not represented by lawyers. Telephone listings for them could not be located by The Associated Press.

Posted by mikki at 07:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft: we listen to broadcasters, not customers:




Danny sez, "A Microsoft spokesperson told CNet today that 'Microsoft included technologies in Windows based on rules set forth by the (Federal Communications Commission). As part of these regulations, Windows Media Center fully adheres to the flags used by broadcasters and content owners to determine how their content is distributed and consumed.' Do they really mean that they're obeying the broadcast flag that courts and Congress rejected as being executive overreach by the FCC? The ones they have no obligation to follow?"

This is about the defunct "Broadcast Flag," an illegal proposal to have the FCC regulate devices (PCs, set-top boxes, etc) so that they'll only include approved technologies that the entertainment industry likes. The Second Circuit ruled that the FCC couldn't make these rules. But Microsoft's devices are following the rules anyway, refusing to allow you to record your favorite TV shows with your Windows PC if the broadcaster has marked them as "no record."

Link

(Thanks, Danny!)

See also: Microsoft and NBC enforce the nonexistent Broadcast Flag, WTF?!

Posted by mikki at 06:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Most Spam Sites Tied to a Handful of Registrars - Security Fix:


New research suggests that more than three quarters of all Web sites advertised through spam are clustered at just 10 domain name registrars.

The data comes from millions of junk messages collected over the past year by Knujon ("no junk" spelled backwards and pronounced "new john"), an anti-spam outfit that works by convincing registrars to dismantle spam sites.

Knujon's co-founder Garth Bruen said the links in spam messages touting fake pharmacies, knock-off designer products, pirated software and phony lending institutions redirect users to a relatively minuscule subset of sites that are generally under the control of a small number of companies.

Bruen focuses most of his energy on calling attention to spam sites that list blatantly false information in their WHOIS records, the global online directory designed to list the contact data for individuals who register Web sites.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Marina Del Rey, Calif.-based group charged with overseeing the domain name system, requires all Web domain registrars to collect and maintain accurate WHOIS data for all domain holders. Under the terms of their contracts with ICANN, registrars are supposed to cancel any Web site registrations with inaccurate WHOIS data if the domain holder does not update their records within 15 days of receiving notice from the registrar.

It should surprise no one that spammers rarely provide their real credentials when registering new sites. But the trouble is that relatively few registrars police their own WHOIS records, or bother to do any kind of rudimentary checks to verify that the information is accurate when the domain holder first registers the site. And, until very recently, Bruen said, ICANN hasn't done much about it.

"ICANN doesn't have any authority or mandate to deal with spam or Internet abuse, but it does have a mandate to make sure the WHOIS records are accurate," Bruen said. "A lot of our work has focused on what's clearly within ICANN's management and what's in the registrar's contractual agreement with ICANN. And ICANN doesn't like the fact that they're being forced to comply with their own standards by third parties."

Over the past several months, Knujon has submitted so many automated complaints about inaccurate WHOIS records at registrars that it crashed ICANN's database on several occasions.

Bruen said he tried to warn ICANN that this would happen.

"The absurd thing about this is I flew out there in June and said 'Here's the direction we're heading in with Knujon, and from what I can tell, your database can't handle what we have to submit'," Bruen recalls telling the ICANN folks.

Bruen said ICANN tacitly acknowledged in a recent newsletter that the complaint database crashes and that Knujon was responsible for filing 40 percent (19,873 out of 50,189) of all WHOIS inaccuracy reports submitted to ICANN in the latest reporting period.

In April 2007, ICANN launched a new program to address WHOIS compliance issues, including an annual WHOIS data accuracy audit. It also combed through all of the inaccurate WHOIS reports and sent certain registrars a "Notice of Concern," though it declined to publicly name those companies.

So who are the top 10 registrars most favored by spammers? You can see the list along with Knujon's methodology here. A few of the names on it are unsurprising simply by virtue of their market share. Number five -- Bellevue, Wash., based eNom -- is the second largest registrar, according to DomainTools's registrarstats.com. Number six -- Pompano Beach, Fla., based Moniker -- has the eighth largest market share among registrars.

But size doesn't explain most of the names on the list. The registrars that scored the worst overall - Xinnet Bei Gon Da Software, BEIJINGNN, and Todaynic -- are all located in China, and are 18th, 47th and 99th in terms of market share, respectively.

Perhaps the most interesting name on the list is number 7 - a registrar out of Broomfield, Colo., called Dynamic Dolphin. According to Knujon, more than 10 percent of the company's 45,000-plus domains have false WHOIS data, and more than 17 percent of the domains registered through the company have been observed being advertised through spam.

A bit of digging into Dynamic Dolphin revealed that it is owned by a company called CPA Empire, which in turn is owned by Media Breakaway LLC. Those of you who read this post a few weeks back will recognize this company: Its CEO is Scott Richter, a notorious, self-avowed spammer who claims to have quit the business. As I noted in that post, anti-spam groups claim that Media Breakaway recently hijacked more than 65,000 IP address for use in sending e-mail and hosting commercial Web sites.

Dynamic Dolphin is a reseller of registrar services offered by number 9 on the list, an Indian company named Direct Information PVT Ltd. (Directi) and doing business as PublicDomainRegistry.com.

To its credit, Directi has been fairly active of late in removing spammy and outright nasty customers from its domain portfolio. Last year, the company canceled more than 18,000 registrations tied to the Russian Business Network (RBN), an ISP that experts say served as a front for organized Russian cyber criminals and child pornographers.

RBN was scattered to the four winds in November 2007, after stories from The Washington Post and other media outlets exposed the company's business activities and supporting networks. Experts say RBN may be dispersed, but it is hardly gone. Anti-spam groups have spotted cyber-crime activity that fits RBN's modus operandi at a number of Chinese ISPs and registrars since its original online base of operations was boarded up

Posted by mikki at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

UnionLeader.com - New Hampshire news - Firefighters save girl's dog and her prom - Sunday, May. 18, 2008:


Alexandra Shaw lost her Fitzwilliam house, including her prom dress, in a fire that nearly claimed her dog yesterday.

Firefighters took a vote at the fire scene and agreed to donate money so Shaw could buy a new dress and attend last night's senior prom at Monadnock Regional High School in Swanzey.

"Her boyfriend picked her up and they went to the prom," Assistant Fire Chief Ed Mattson said. "She looked very nice (in the black dress)."

Firefighters first were alerted for smoke then a brush fire before they discovered the house at 29 Westminster Drive fully involved around 12:30 p.m.

No one was home at the time, and firefighters couldn't save the split-level home.

Firefighters found the family's dog, a black Labrador retriever, inside the home and initially thought the dog had died.

"We put cold water on it," Mattson said. "We gave the dog some oxygen."

The dog moved its head and was doing fine last night.

Firefighters didn't want Shaw to miss her prom.

"We had a quick meeting outside the house," he said. " 'We need to send this lady to the prom.' "

Posted by mikki at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On a Need to Know Basis: Controlled Unclassified Information:

The White House issued a memo to executive branch agencies detailing how information previously termed “sensitive but unclassified,” should be designated and disseminated. Critics charge that the new rules for what is henceforth called “controlled unclassified information” will likely shield more government information from public view.

Posted by mikki at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shocking new airline security system:

Boy, I feel safer already...

United States Patent 6,933,851

Hahne , et al. August 23, 2005

Air travel security method, system and device

Abstract

A method of providing air travel security for passengers traveling via an aircraft comprises situating a remotely activatable electric shock device on each of the passengers in position to deliver a disabling electrical shock when activated; and arming the electric shock devices for subsequent selective activation by a selectively operable remote control disposed within the aircraft. The remotely activatable electric shock devices each have activation circuitry responsive to the activating signal transmitted from the selectively operable remote control means. The activated electric shock device is operable to deliver the disabling electrical shock to that passenger.

via The Kaz

Posted by mikki at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Man admits telling CIA officers: 'I have a bomb':


WASHINGTON - A man who used a snow plow attached to his pickup truck to ram a gate outside CIA headquarters pleaded guilty to making a bomb threat.
After CIA Security Protective Service officers surrounded Antoine Lowery, 30, of D.C., at the Virginia headquarters on Feb. 22, 2008, he told them at least three times that the trruck would explode.

According to a statement of facts filed with his plea agreement, he used phrases that included "the truck is going to blow up" and "I have a bomb." He also counted down from five to zero several times.

Lowery faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, 3 years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine when he's sentenced Aug. 8.

Posted by mikki at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Photographers stand up for your rights in LA, June 1:


Discarted sez,

One June 1, photographers throughout Los Angeles will gather at the Hollywood and Highland Metro Station to peacefully protest against the unnecessary treatment they have received from security guards (particularly the white shirts), LAPD, and LASD while photographing in public places, and on the Metro.

Make signs, T-shirts, and be sure to bring your cameras (still and video). Sign ideas as well as other ideas should be posted here. We need things that will make us stand out as a cohesive group.

Start Time: 11:00am, June 1
Location: Hollywood and Highland, 6801 Hollywood Los Angeles, CA 90028

At about 1:30pm we will board the Metro and travel to Union Station

Start Time: 2:00pm
Location: 800 N Alameda St Los Angeles, CA 90012
Contact: info@discarted.com

Link, Link to Flickr group

See also: Taking pictures on LA's Red Line violates the "9/11 Law"

(Image: Photographing the photographer, a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike photo from Naixn's Flickr stream)

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

Angry flight attendant charged with setting fire on plane - CNN.com:


FARGO, North Dakota (AP) -- A 19-year-old flight attendant has been accused of setting a fire aboard a commercial airplane that was forced to make an emergency landing in Fargo, North Dakota.

Eder Rojas was charged Thursday in federal court in Minneapolis. The case will be prosecuted in Fargo.

Officials say the Compass Airlines flight from Minneapolis to Saskatchewan landed safely in Fargo on May 7, after smoke begin to fill the back of the plane.

Court documents say Rojas, of Woodbury, Minnesota, told authorities he was upset at the airline for making him work that route.

Posted by mikki at 09:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Italian tourist detained by Homeland Security for visiting his American girlfriend:


A NY Times article describes how Domenico Salerno, an Italian was jailed by the US government for 10 days after coming to the US to see his American girlfriend and her family.

[O]n April 29, when Mr. Salerno, 35, presented his passport at Washington Dulles International Airport, a Customs and Border Protection agent refused to let him into the United States. And after hours of questioning, agents would not let him travel back to Rome, either; over his protests in fractured English, he said, they insisted that he had expressed a fear of returning to Italy and had asked for asylum.

...

“The border patrol officer said to my face that Domenico said he would be killed if he went back to Italy,” [Salerno's girlfriend Caitlin Cooper] recalled, voicing incredulity that, in his halting English, he could express such a thought. “Also, who on earth would ever seek asylum from Italy?”

Twelve hours later, when Mr. Salerno was granted a five-minute phone call, he called Ms. Cooper and denied saying anything of the kind. Instead, he said, the asylum story seemed to be retaliation for his insisting on speaking to his embassy.

After being turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he was taken to the Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover, Va., where he ended up in a barracks with 75 other men, including asylum-seekers who told him they had been waiting a year.

Posted by mikki at 03:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

California Supreme Court Rules Lesbian and Gay Couples Have Right To Marry:

California’s Supreme Court ruled 4-3 today that the state may no longer exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage.  In In re Marriage Cases, a consolidation of the cases brought on behalf of 14 same-sex couples as well as the City of San Francisco under the California state constitution, the Court ruled that the marriage ban violates the state’s fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship and the state constitution’s equal protection clause.

According to the controlling opinion:

Our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibility to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.

We conclude that, under this state’s Constitution, the constitutionally based right to marry properly must be understood to encompass the core set of basic substantive legal rights and attributes traditionally associated with marriage that are so integral to an individual’s liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the Legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process. These core substantive rights include, most fundamentally, the opportunity of an individual to establish — with the person with whom the individual has chosen to share his or her life — an officially recognized and protected family possessing mutual rights and responsibilities and entitled to the same respect and dignity according a union traditionally designated as marriage.

“The court’s decision today upheld the highest ideals of fairness and opportunity that are embodied in the California Constitution,” said Shannon Price Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who argued the case on behalf of 14 same-sex couples and two organizations, Equality California and Our Family Coalition.

Currently, lesbian and gay couples may legally marry in Massachusetts, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and South Africa. In 2007, an Iowa trial court held that Iowa’s marriage ban violates the Iowa Constitution. That case is now before the Iowa Supreme Court. A lawsuit challenging the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage in Connecticut is also pending before the Connecticut Supreme Court. 

Anticipating this ruling, opponents of same-sex gay marriage are attempting to amend the California Constitution to discriminate against lesbian and gay couples. A group funded by numerous out-of-state interests hopes to qualify an initiative on the November ballot that would ask voters to alter the constitution by denying gay and lesbian couples the freedom to marry, which the court upheld today. The California Secretary of State has not yet determined if the initiative has qualified for the November ballot.

Posted by mikki at 02:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Public Knowledge Says New Study Shows FCC Needs To Act on Comcast Blocking:

The Max Planck Institute has released a new survey of worldwide BitTorrent traffic finding that Comcast and Cox are the chief offenders for throttling traffic, and that they block at all hours of the day and night.

The study is here:

http://broadband.mpi-sws.mpg.de/transparency/results/

The following statement is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:

“This study is further proof that the largest cable companies are hiding behind ‘network management’ excuses when caught throttling the legitimate traffic of their customers. This study clearly shows there is no blocking at peak usage times, or on certain busy days. The study found the ‘percentage of blocked connections remains high at all times of the day. Our data suggests that the BitTorrent blocking is independent of the time of the day.’

read more

Posted by mikki at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stupid Security | It Is Secure 'cos It Looks Secure:


Anonymous Coward writes "I work at a large UK international airport which shall not be named. There was one particular section which was open access , but the Decision Makers decided to increase security by adding a swipe card and keylock with individual codes for each person so they could record every individual entry. For weeks after it was installed I studiously swiped my card, keyed in my personal access code and waited for the green light and beep before pushing the door open. That then one day I forgot and just pushed the door - which opened. The rumour is that the powers that be be received so many complaints from manager types that they decided to disconnect the security system, but left the access control systems in place so that it looks like it is a high security door."

Posted by mikki at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's about time too....

FAA Says Emergency Medical Helicopters Need Safety Improvements:


Three men died last weekend when an emergency medical-services helicopter crashed near Madison, Wis., and this week the FAA responded with an update on its work to address safety concerns about such flights. The NTSB reported on the helicopter emergency medical services fleet in 2006, and asked the FAA to impose stricter requirements on all such operators. "While the FAA has not ruled out proposing new or changing existing rules, the agency has prompted significant short-term safety gains that do not require rulemaking," the FAA said in a statement on Tuesday. The agency said it is focusing on better training for flight crews; encouraging the use of technology such as night-vision goggles, radar altimeters, and terrain awareness and warning systems (though such systems don't work optimally in helicopters, the FAA says); and more detailed, airline-type FAA oversight for operators. "Safety improvements are needed," the FAA said.

Posted by mikki at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The slogan you deserve:


“The Change You Deserve,” the new GOP slogan, was also a slogan for Effexor, an antidepressant drug, though it seems to have been abandoned (the thechangeyoudeserve.com website is inactive, and the FDA sent a warning letter about some of the marketing surrounding the slogan). Here’s the Huffington Post on the slogan:

Its common side effects are very much in keeping with the world the House Republicans have striven to build: nausea, apathy, constipation, fatigue, vertigo, sexual dysfunction, sweating, memory loss, and - and I swear I am not making this up – “electric shock-like sensations also called ‘brain zaps.’”

Its less common side effects are equally awesome in their appropriateness.

And when the Food And Drug Administration reviewed the ad copy that included the tagline, “The change you deserve,” it took issue with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which manufactures Effexor, saying that the company made “unsubstantiated superiority claims.” Sounds like the GOP have picked an ironically accurate tagline for their efforts!

Democratic lawmakers were no less gleeful. The Washington Post reports:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) called reporters into his office. “Democrats, not drugs, is what the American people need,” he said. He flashed the Effexor side effects on a large flat-screen television. “Nausea, up to 58 percent,” Hoyer said. “Actually it’s higher than that for Republicans.”

For House Republicans, the diagnosis is obvious: They are suffering from Election Anxiety Disorder.

…. And Hoyer didn’t even mention the warning label, which states that patients should be watched to see if they are “becoming agitated, irritable, hostile, aggressive, impulsive, or restless.”

This is an example of a second-comer’s use doing harm to the second-comer. Rather than free riding, which doesn’t seem to have been the GOP’s intent at all, the slogan can easily be tarred with inappropriate connotations. Reciprocally, though this use is clearly not actionable dilution, it’s easy to see how it could harm the brand—Effexor’s been dragged into a political battle that really has nothing to do with it, and the side effects that provide political ammunition might not seem so funny (or so bad) if one were actually treating depression.

Posted by mikki at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 15, 1930: The Skies Get a Little Bit Friendlier:

1930: Ellen Church becomes the world's first airline stewardess, working a Boeing Air Transport flight from Oakland, California, to Chicago. The flight takes 20 hours and involves 13 stops along the way.

Church, a registered nurse from Iowa, was so enamored of flying that she became a certified pilot. She approached BAT (the forerunner of United Airlines) looking for a pilot's job, a futile hope for women in those days. But the BAT exec did like Church's other suggestion: that commercial airliners carry nurses on board.

Smelling a publicity coup, and figuring that on-board nurses would help quell the public's fear -- very real at the time -- of flying, he sold her proposal to the boys at the top. BAT hired eight nurses, including Church, for what it thought would be a three-month experiment.

These weren't just any nurses, though.

Even then, there were strict physical requirements for what BAT referred to as "sky girls." In addition to being a registered nurse, the successful candidate had to be single, under 25, no taller than 5-feet-4, and she could weigh no more than 115 pounds. And although it wasn't written down anywhere, the prospective stewardess had to be attractive, at least to the guy doing the hiring.

So they were trim and petite, which did not necessarily suit the rigors of the job. That's because the first stewardesses did a lot more than merely serve passengers, pass out airsick bags or take a pulse now and then. They were expected to haul luggage, screw down loose seats, help with fueling the plane and finally, at day's end, help the pilots push the plane into the hangar.

Glamorous? You bet.

Like a lot of other service jobs, working conditions for stewardesses -- flight attendants in today's parlance -- only improved with their determination to organize and use the power of the union to obtain better pay and benefits.

As for Church, she worked as a stew for 18 months before being grounded as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident. She returned to nursing, but her flying days weren't over yet: During World War II, she served as a captain in the Army Nurses Corps, receiving the Air Medal for distinguished service in the European Theater.

After the war, Church continued her nursing career in Terre Haute, Indiana. She was killed in a horseback riding accident in 1965.

The airfield in her hometown of Cresco, Iowa, is named in her honor.

Source: Various

Posted by mikki at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Universal Music: when we get hit with copyright damages, that's "unconstitutionally excessive":


Universal Music Group loves the idea of suing music fans for the full freight when it comes to copyright infringement, celebrating their ability to extract $150,000 per act of infringement with punitive damages on top -- but now that Universal's been slapped with one of these copyright suits (for sampling Hendrix without permission, something I think they should be able to do, FWIW), they've decided that these damages are "unconstitutionally excessive."

The case in question involves now-deceased rapper The Notorious B.I.G., whose album Ready to Die incorporated an unlicensed sample of "Singing in the Morning" from the Ohio Players after a Hendrix sample was denied clearance. The sample made its way onto the final album and even onto reissued albums. Bridgeport Music and Westbound Records, which control the rights to the song, sued. A district court ruled in their favor; Bridgeport took the $150,000 maximum in statutory damages, while Westbound sought compensatory and punitive damages. Westbound scored big, earning $366,939 from the jury along with punitive damages of a whopping $3.5 million.

In appealing the ruling, Universal argued that the punitive damages award was "grossly excessive and should be vacated or at least reduced." The reason? It's excessive. The brief quotes a Supreme Court ruling that said, "In practice, few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process." Universal pointed out that the award in question was "approximately 10 to 1, far above the line of unconstitutional impropriety."

Link

Posted by mikki at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Does the RIAA Have Legal Legs?:

I don't blog much about the minutae of the cascade of digital music-related lawsuits in part because there are people who obsessively blog these things and I've lost patience with it over the years. One place that hasn't lost patience and generally does a very good job with the details is Recording Industry vs The People.

Yesterday they published an entry that caught my eye because it goes to the heart of something I've been wanting to see for a while: someone is trying to kick the legs out from under the set of suppositions that the RIAA are using to sue the pants off everyone and anyone.

Here's a short list of things the RIAA would like us to believe and have (by and large) gotten judges to agree with:

• You are not allowed to make MP3 copies of tracks on CDs you legally own


• Placing MP3s into a file directory that might be accessed from outside your computer is equivalent to giving away copies


• An IP address is equivalent to a personal identifier

There are more, of course, but let's focus on these for a moment as we've further developments to discuss in Atlantic v. Howell, a case I pointed to in December of last year. At that point, there was contention over whether the Cartel were backtracking on the question of whether CD owners have the right to rip their own CDs.

Well now we a judge rejecting the RIAA's motion for summary judgement in the case. If the judge had bought into the RIAA's premises above the case would've been another slam-dunk win for the Cartel. Instead Judge Wake appears to be ready to change his earlier stance and agree with the defendants (and their EFF counsel) that simply placing copies in a directory is not a "distribution". This is key because if there's no distribution then there's no copyright infringement.

Furthermore, there's a good question to be argued as to whether the defendants are even the ones who put that MP3 file there. Such an issue would be settled by a trial, but the RIAA doesn't want trials. Its jihad is based on filing and rapidly settling thousands of these lawsuits. Having them go to trial would prove time-consuming, risky, and expensive even if the Cartel won.

For a large variety of reasons, the Cartel can't afford to wage this war in the court trial dockets. It needs to be conducted in the mass, scalable fashion whereby the threat of the judiciary is used to extort payment from consumers... err, victims... err, named defendants.

Despite the amount of time this case has already dragged out, it's still in the very early stages. As Eric Bangeman pointed out in his ars technica story on the denial, Judge Wake's reasoning is at odds with other judges' decisions on similar issues. For the great majority of cases, the RIAA is being successful in its jihad. My guess is that they'll argue this case a little further to see if Judge Wake can be swayed back. If he continues to rule against them, they'll drop the case before it goes to trial - they have no incentive to get an actual verdict on the books against them and an appeal would be even more expensive. So long as the tide continues to run in their favor, the Cartel can keep going even if it has to drop a case now and then. To truly kick the legs out from under them would require an act of Congress or a decision by a much higher-level court. Neither will happen soon.

Posted by mikki at 06:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Note: If he took these out of the water to photograph them, I find that disgusting. If not, I find that brilliant. We shall see.

Enchanting nudibrach glam-shots:

Marilyn sez, "David Doubilet is the Annie Leibowitz of the marine gastropod world. He took all but two photos in this amazingly beautiful gallery of nudibranchs to accompany a feature story on the same subject in the June Nat Geo magazine, online now."

Link to article, Link to gallery)

(Thanks, Marilyn!)

Posted by mikki at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Forgotten tot left behind at Vancouver airport:


VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) - An immigrant family left a 23-month-old boy in the Vancouver airport and learned he was missing only when contacted during the next leg of the trip.

Jun Parreno, the boy's father, told The Vancouver Sun the mix-up occurred Monday as he, his wife and two grandparents of the child, J.M., were scrambling between their arrival in Canada and a connecting flight to Winnipeg on Air Canada.

Running late after having to unpack and repack all their luggage, "we had 10 minutes before boarding," said Parreno, who was emigrating with his family from the Philippines. "We were running for the gate."

He said he thought his son was with the three other adults, who were running to the gate ahead of him, and they thought the little boy was with him.

Instead, in a scenario similar to the movie "Home Alone," the toddler was wandering alone between a security checkpoint and the flight gates, said Angela Mah, an Air Canada representative.

"We were called by (security) who told us one of the security people had a toddler in tow," Mah said. "He doesn't speak English, so we found a Tagalog-speaking agent who has been looking after him."

There was no boarding pass for the youngster because he did not have a separately assigned seat, so there was no indication in the airline's computer system that someone had missed a flight, nor had there been any panicked calls from anyone on a flight missing a child, Mah said.

That's because the family was scattered in different parts of the plane to Winnipeg and still didn't know the child had been left.

Air Canada staff began checking flights that had left, and "we eventually determined who his parents might be ... and the flight crew talked to them," Mah said. "They didn't realize until then that the baby had been left behind.

"We're not aware of this ever happening on an Air Canada flight before."

The parents were put into telephone contact with the little boy, and Parreno was put on another Air Canada plane to return to Vancouver to get him after the family's flight arrived in Winnipeg with the airline covering the cost of the two additional flights, she said.

Parreno had tears in his eyes when he returned to Winnipeg holding his son.

"I am relieved everything is OK ... but I was shocked," he said. "The staff at Air Canada took good care of him."

Posted by mikki at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Outrageous! 1-year-old summoned to court:


HARRISONBURG, Va. (AP) - A Harrisonburg court has dismissed a case against a baby boy summoned to appear in court for an unpaid bill.

Richard White says he was shocked when he got a subpoena in the mail requiring his 1-year-old son, Jacy, to appear in Rockingham County General District Court next Tuesday over a $391 chiropractor bill.

Neither of Jacy's parents was named in the lawsuit, which has been dismissed at the request of the plaintiff.

Shortly after his son's birth in April 2007, White says he took Jacy to the chiropractor. He suspects that when the family moved, the office updated records for everyone but Jacy.

White says his insurance didn't cover the $391 and only recently billed him _ about the same time the residents of his former home forwarded the subpoena.

Posted by mikki at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Serious Gmail Flaw: Security Group Demonstrates Sending Unlimited Spam Using Google’s Own Servers:


Researchers at Information Security Research Team (INSERT) have dissevered a serious flaw in Google’s Gmail service. The group demonstrates how anyone with no special Internet access privileges other than being able to connect to SMTP (TCP port 25) and HTTP (TCP port 80) servers is able to exploit a single Gmail account in order to be granted nearly unrestricted access to Google’s massive whitelisted SMTP relay infrastructure.

From the Report:

As part of our recent work on the trust hierarchy that exists among email providers throughout the Internet, we have uncovered a serious security flaw in Google’s free email service, Gmail. This vulnerability exposes Google’s email servers in a way that allows an attacker to use them as open spam and phishing relays. This issue is related to the risk of a malicious user abusing Gmail’s email forwarding functionality. This is possible because Gmail’s email forwarding functionality does not impose proper security restrictions during its setup process and can be easily subverted. By exploiting this problem an attacker can send unlimited spam and phishing (i.e. forged) email messages that are delivered by Google’s very own SMTP servers. Since the messages are delivered by Google’s own servers, an attack based on this flaw is able to bypass all spam filters that are based on the blacklist / whitelist concept. We were able to confirm that this vulnerability is indeed exploitable by crafting a proof of concept attack that allowed us to send forged email messages unrestrictedly through Google’s server infrastructure. We have also verified that this flaw allows attackers to bypass spam filters by using our method to send messages that are usually flagged as spam. While sending these messages directly from our network in the traditional way had the messages classified as spam, by sending the very same messages using our exploit, the messages were delivered directly to the victim’s inbox, thus bypassing filters. All email providers that offer Google’s SMTP servers any special level of trust (e.g. whitelist status) are vulnerable. We have contacted Google about this issue and are waiting for their position before releasing further details.

Posted by mikki at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former Qantas Executive Pleads Guilty to DOJ Price-Fixing Charges:


Bruce McCaffrey, the former highest-ranking U.S. executive of Qantas Airways Limited, agreed to a plea deal with federal prosecutors Thursday to serve eight months in prison and pay a $20,000 fine. McCaffrey was charged with violating the Sherman Act by engaging in a conspiracy to fix air cargo rates between 2000 and 2006. If approved, the deal will require McCaffrey to cooperate with an ongoing investigation by the Justice Department's antitrust division into price-fixing within the airline industry.

Posted by mikki at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Endangered parrots born in captivity reproduce in wild - CNN.com:


LA GARITA DE ALAJUELA, Costa Rica (AP) -- Endangered scarlet macaws born in captivity are reproducing in the wild for the first time on Costa Rica's southern Pacific coast.

The ZooAve Center for the Rescue of Endangered Species has released 100 of the birds into the wild in the past decade. But biologists didn't spot offspring until last year, biologist Laura Fournier said.

Since then, they have recorded 22 chicks born in the wild, and four more scarlet macaw couples have laid eggs, Fournier said.

The parrots once occupied all of Costa Rica. But hunting and poaching dramatically cut their population, and they are now found only in two national parks along the coast.

The biologists' goal is for 200 birds to populate an isolated coastal area.

Chicks are hatched at the ZooAve center in La Garita, northwest of Costa Rica's capital, San Jose. At 6 months, they take a 200-mile trip to the southern city of Golfito and then travel by boat to a beach and finally the isolated San Josecito conservation center, far from human settlements. There, they spend up to three months in captivity before being released.

The parrots, which live up to 80 years, can start reproducing at age 7. Of ZooAve's 86 scarlet macaws, 54 are in the reproduction program.

Many parrots in the breeding program were confiscated by environmental authorities or turned in by their former owners. Some can't leave the sanctuary because they don't know how to survive in the wild.

"Many don't even know how to feed themselves," Fournier said.

Posted by mikki at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NSL: Internet Archive Exposes Lack of Security in National Security Letters:




The Internet Archive has for a decade been a cornerstone of the Internet,
and the FBI was foolish to try to break it:

The FBI has withdrawn an illegal National Security Letter seeking
information from an online library and has lifted a gag order that until
Wednesday prevented any discussion of the information request.

Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier
Foundation helped the Internet Archive push back against what they say
was an overly broad and unlawful request for information on one of its
users. The FBI issued its National Security Letter in November, but ACLU,
EFF and Archive officials were precluded from discussing it with anyone
because of a gag order they say was unconstitutional.

After nearly five months of haggling, the FBI eventually withdrew its
NSL, which requested personal information about at least one user of
the Internet Archive. Founded in 1996, the archive is recognized as a
library by the state of California, and its collections include billions
of Web records, documents, music and movies.

—
Watchdogs prompt FBI to withdraw 'unconstitutional' National Security Letter,
Nick Juliano,
therawstory,
Published: Wednesday May 7, 2008

How do these NSL represent "Security"?

In any case, National Security Letters were authorized by the mis-named
Patriot Act. Brewster Kahle has shown us how a real patriot acts:

"The goal was to help other recipients of NSLs and other libraries to
understand that you can push back on these," he said.

The FBI's letter demanded the "name, address, length of service, and
electronic communication transactional records ... and all electronic
mail (e-mail) header information," from the Archive about at least one
user of the Web site.

Kahle said the Archive didn't keep any private information on its users
aside from an unverified e-mail address, so he couldn't have handed any
of that information over even if he wanted to. However, he called the
FBI's attempts to gag him "horrendous" and unnecessary. He also worried
about the overreaching implications of such demands, which prompted him
to challenge the FBI's letter.

"As a library we know that we've long protected patrons from government
intrusions," he said.

-jsq

Posted by mikki at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

RIAA says DRM is coming back -- in the future, you won't own music:


You know how all the record labels have been dropping their requirements for DRM on their music, opening up more and more venues for DRM-free music? Well, according to David Hughes, head of RIAA technology, that's just a temporary condition. From now on, we're going to increasingly rent our music with subscription services that will use DRM to take it away from us if we stop subscribing. Hughes says that that's the only possible way to run a subscription service -- but of course, Magnatunes has a DRM-free subscription service, and I still have all those issues of Asimov's they sent me when I had a subscription, even though I let the subscription lapse.

The RIAA believes in "intellectual property," which is a fancy way of saying: they believe that they get to own property, and you have to rent it. The bits on your hard-drive belong to them, and that means you have to install DRM that lets them control your PC so that you don't do bad things with their bits. In the information age, "property" is the exclusive preserve of giant companies that can afford to register copyrights and sue to defend them, while the rest of us get to sharecrop all our embodiments of their property, from furniture to t-shirts to music to games to cars to PCs.

Hughes believes that per-track purchases are going the way of the dodo in favor of these other models, and that's why DRM will have a resurgence. "I think there is going to be a shift," he said. "I think there will be a movement towards subscription services and they will eventually mean the return of DRM." Hughes did acknowledge that users would rather live in a world where DRM stayed out of their way by saying that as long as they get to use files how they want, users don't care about DRM.

The problem with DRM is that users can't use the files how they want, which is why they do care. And we're miles away from the kind of magical solution solution envisioned by the Hughes that would create the perfect, unnoticeable DRM scheme. Others on the panel realize this. Digimarc Corp. director of business development Rajan Samtani pointed out that there are too many ways for the "kids" to get around DRM and that it's time to "throw in the towel."

Posted by mikki at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Garden Gnomes Pop Up In Front Of Frederick Businesses - News Story - WRC | Washington:


FREDERICK, Md. -- Those tacky gnome statues often seen in residential gardens have been showing up in front of businesses in downtown Frederick.
Eric Krasner, owner of CineGraphic Studios, said he found one in front of his business, moments after seeing two women posing for pictures with two gnomes on a bridge over Carroll Creek as he was driving to work. The women left the gnomes behind.
Police said they have not received any reports of stolen gnomes, and the Frederick Arts Council is unaware of any art projects involving gnomes.

The Frederick News-Post reports stealing gnomes from gardens and photographing them in other locations has been a popular prank for years.

Posted by mikki at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

C64 emulator for iPhone:

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Odds and ends, Apple, iPhone

Posted by mikki at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New GA Fuel Promises Better Range, Lower Cost:


"Not only can our fuel seamlessly replace the aviation industry's standard petroleum fuel [100LL], it can outperform it," says John Rusek, a professor at Purdue University and co-founder of Swift Enterprises. The company recently unveiled a new general aviation fuel that it says will be less expensive, more fuel-efficient and environmentally friendlier than any on the market. Unlike other alternative fuels, Rusek said, SwiftFuel is made of synthetic hydrocarbons that are derived from biomass, and it can provide an effective range greater than 100LL, while costing about half as much to produce. "Our fuel should not be confused with first-generation biofuels like E-85 [85 percent ethanol], which don't compete well right now with petroleum," Rusek said. Patented technology can produce the 1.8 million gallons per day of fuel used by GA in the U.S. by using just 5 percent of the existing biofuel plant infrastructure, the company said.

Posted by mikki at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chief RIAA Litigator Named Colorado Judge -- UPDATE | Threat Level from Wired.com:


Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter is appointing the Recording Industry Association of America's top litigator to the Colorado Court of Appeals.
Richard Gabriel, who prosecuted the Jammie Thomas case, is a partner in the Colorado office of Holme Roberts & Owens. Gabriel, who assumes the $124,000 annual post July 1, was a convincing litigator in the Thomas case, the nation's first RIAA lawsuit against an individual for file-sharing that went to trial.
The Minnesota jury took five minutes to conclude Thomas was liable and a few more hours to ding her $222,000.
Thomas' attorney, Brian Toder, said he recently got a call from Colorado officials who were vetting Gabriel for the appellate post, which is one court above the state trial courts and one below the Colorado Supreme Court. "I gave him a very favorable rating. I think he's a standup guy and a good lawyer. And I think he would be a good judge," Toder said.
The Pirate Party of the United States took a different position. "Being the lead counsel in a multi-year campaign of extortion, pretexting, and sham litigation should not be rewarded with a seat in any court, except perhaps as a defendant," said the party's chairman, Andrew Norton.
UPDATE
In a telephone interview, the 46-year-old Gabriel said "I saw an opportunity to serve and thought I would throw my hat in the ring and see what would happen."
Gabriel added that "I love the practice of law. There are parts of it that I will very much miss. I'm looking forward to the next challenges and next phase in my life. I very much enjoyed being in a courtroom representing my clients to the best of my ability."
There was no immediate word on who would replace Gabriel as the RIAA's top litigator. The RIAA has sued more than 20,000 individuals for allegedly file sharing copyrighted music.

Posted by mikki at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Internet Archive Beats Back FBI's Demand for Subscriber Data:


The FBI has agreed to drop its demand that a San Francisco-based Internet library turn over subscriber information, according to court documents unsealed Monday. As part of a settlement, the FBI also agreed that its previously secret efforts could be publicized. Kurt Opsahl, who helped represent the Internet Archive -- whose Wayback Machine page allows viewers to see old versions of millions of Web pages -- said he believes the victory is only the fourth successful challenge to a national security letter.

Posted by mikki at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

HOWTO keep your laptop from being searched at the border (it's hard):


The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Rebecca Jeschke sez, "EFF's Jennifer Granick outlines how you should protect yourself while traveling with private data. Bad news: it's not easy."

If you encrypt your hard drive with strong crypto, it will be prohibitively expensive for CBP to access your confidential information. This answer is imperfect for two reasons—one is practical, the other is technological.

Practically, the government has not disclosed CBP's laptop search practices, despite our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for these documents. We don't know what a border patrol agent will do when confronted with an encrypted machine. One possibility is that the agent will simply give up and let the traveler pass with her belongings. Other possibilities are that the agent will turn the traveler and her machine away at the border, or that he will seize the laptop and allow the traveler to continue on. I suspect that on most occasions, CBP agents confronted with encrypted or password-protected data tell the owner to enter the password or get turned away, and the owner, eager to continue her voyage or to return home, simply complies.

If you don't want to comply, CBP cannot force you to decrypt your data or give over your password. Only a judge can force you to answer questions, and then only if the Fifth Amendment does not apply. While no Fifth Amendment right protects the data on your laptop or phone, one federal court has held that even a judge cannot force you to divulge your password when the act of revealing the password shows that you are the person with access to or control over potentially incriminating files. See In re Boucher, 2007 WL 4246473 (D. Vt. November 29, 2007).

Link

(Thanks, Rebecca!)

See also: EFF and security experts to Congress: We need hearings on Customs laptop seizures and snooping

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

iPhone as Tricorder:

Filed under: Humor, iPhone

Posted by mikki at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Extended Forecast: Bloodshed - New York Times:


Here’s a forecast for a particularly bizarre consequence of climate change: more executions of witches.

As we pump out greenhouse gases, most of the discussion focuses on direct consequences like rising seas or aggravated hurricanes. But the indirect social and political impact in poor countries may be even more far-reaching, including upheavals and civil wars — and even more witches hacked to death with machetes.

In rural Tanzania, murders of elderly women accused of witchcraft are a very common form of homicide. And when Tanzania suffers unusual rainfall — either drought or flooding — witch-killings double, according to research by Edward Miguel, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

“In bad years, the killings explode,” Professor Miguel said. He believes that if climate change causes more drought years in Tanzania, the result will be more elderly women executed there and in other poor countries that still commonly attack supposed witches.

There is evidence that European witch-burnings in past centuries may also have resulted from climate variations and the resulting crop failures, economic distress and search for scapegoats. Emily Oster, a University of Chicago economist, tracked witchcraft trials and weather in Western Europe between 1520 and 1770 and found a close correlation: colder weather led to more crackdowns on witches.

In particular, Europe’s “little ice age” led to a sharp cooling in the late 1500s, and that corresponds to a renewal in witchcraft trials after a long lull. And there’s also micro-evidence: in one area, a brutally cold May in 1626 led outraged peasants to call for punishment of witches thought responsible. Some scholars have also argued that the Salem witch trials occurred after a particularly cold winter and economically difficult period.

The point is that climate change will have consequences that will be difficult to foresee but will go far beyond weather or economics. There is abundant evidence that economic stress and crop failures — as climate scientists anticipate in poor countries — can lead to violence and upheavals.

In the United States, for example, some historians have found correlations between recessions or declines in farm values and increased lynchings of blacks.

Paul Collier, an Oxford University expert on global poverty, found that economic stagnation in poor countries leads to a rising risk of civil war. Professor Collier warns that climate change is likely to reduce rainfall in southern Africa enough that corn will no longer be a viable crop there. Since corn is a major form of sustenance in that region, the result may be catastrophic food shortages — and civil conflict.

The area that may be hardest hit of all — aside from islands that disappear beneath the waves — is the fragile Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert in West Africa. The Sahel is already impoverished and torn by religious and ethnic tensions, and reduced rainfall could push the region into warfare.

“The poorest people on Earth are in the Sahel, barely eking out an existence, and climate change pushes them over the edge,” Professor Miguel said. “It’s totally unfair.”

His research suggests that a drought one year increases by 50 percent the risk that an African country will slip into civil war the next year.

Ethnic conflict in Darfur was exacerbated by drought and competition for water, and some experts see it as the first war caused by climate change. That’s too simplistic, for the crucial factor was simply the ruthlessness of the Sudanese government, but climate change may well have been a contributing factor.

In a forthcoming book, “Economic Gangsters,” Mr. Miguel calls for a new system of emergency aid for countries suffering unusual drought or similar economic shocks. Such temporary aid would aim to reduce the risk of warfare that, once it has begun, is enormously costly to stop and often damages neighboring countries as well.

The greenhouse gases that imperil Africa’s future are spewing from the United States, China and Europe. The people in Bangladesh and Africa emit almost no carbon, yet they are the ones who will bear the greatest risks of climate change. Some experts believe that the damage that the West does to poor countries from carbon emissions exceeds the benefit from aid programs.

All this makes the United States’ reluctance to confront climate change in a serious way — like a carbon tax to replace the payroll tax, coupled with global leadership on the issue — as unjust as it is unfortunate.

So let’s remember that the stakes with climate change are broader than hotter summers or damaged beach houses. The most dire consequences of our denial and delay may include civil war — and even witch-killings — among the poorest peoples on earth.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, and join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kristof.

Posted by mikki at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

US Military Coordinated Day of Prayer Events With Christian Right Group:


At least half-a-dozen active-duty military officials have been working closely with a task force headed by the far-right fundamentalist Christians planning religious events at military installations around the country to commemorate Thursday’s National Day of Prayer.

In working directly with the National Day of Prayer (NDP) Task Force and agreeing to work as event coordinators, these military officials not only violated constitutional provisions governing the separation of church and state but they also signed an oath that states they “believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of The Living God” and that “Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only One by which I can obtain salvation and have an ongoing relationship with God,” according to materials posted on NDP Task Force’s website.

Furthermore, the declaration signed by the military officials says that they promise to “ensure a strong, consistent Christian message throughout the nation” and that National Day of Prayer events scheduled to take place at their military installations “will be conducted solely by Christians.”

Lisa Crump, manager of the NDP Task Force’s local coordinators, said that volunteers who are interested in becoming event coordinators, including members of the military, must complete click here "a simple application with contact data and statement of faith, confirming your commitment to Christ is all that's needed to get you on the way to becoming a [National Day of Prayer] Task Force volunteer coordinator."

Mikey Weinstein, the president and founder of the government watchdog group the Military Religious Freedom Foundation http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org blasted the military’s participation with the task force saying it endorses a discriminatory policy.

“It is not likely possible to conceive of a more blatant, heinous and noxious constitutional violation by our United States military than it's filthy, disgusting participation with the so-called National Day of Prayer "Task Force" and it's incontrovertible fundamentalist Christian supremacy agenda of unconstitutional religious exclusion,” Weinstein said. “Further, please immediately note that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation fully intends to include this despicable collusion in our current Federal litigation against the Department of Defense as yet another stunning example of a pernicious and pervasive pattern and practice of unconstitutional rape of the precious religious liberties of our honorable and noble United States soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen."

The NDP Task Force, which portrays itself as the official organizer of the National Day of Prayer, is headed by Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, who has close ties to President Bush.

Although the task force is not directly tied to any federal agency, it has coordinated many of its activities this year with active-duty military chaplains and other military personnel at bases around the country. That would appear to violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibiting individuals from using the machinery of the state to promote any form of religion. The Constitution protects the rights of the public to worship, or not, as they see fit.

But the military has not been adhering to these strict regulations.

Indeed, two weeks ago, at Fort Carson Army Base in Colorado, the community events office sent out an email to everyone on the base along with a flyer announcing an event scheduled at Fort Carson in observance of National Day of Prayer. The email included a message from Specialist Brian Havens, who closed his note with “In Christ.” Havens is identified on the Task force website as an event coordinator, indicating that he signed the Task Force’s "Statement of Faith" application and agreed to uphold the NDP Task Force’s Christian policies.

According to Chris Rodda, the senior research director for The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Weinstein tried to persuade one military chaplain to disassociate himself from a Task Force event in Missouri.

Rodda said she and Weinstein were “surprised” to come across the name of Chaplain Kevin L. McGhee of the Missouri National Guard. According to the NDP Task Force website, Maj. McGhee is scheduled to participate in the NDP Task Force prayer rally at Missouri State Capitol.

This is the same Chaplain McGhee who, last year, came to the defense of Chaplain Bob Larsen, when Larsen converted from Christianity to Wicca and applied to be the first Wiccan chaplain in the U.S. Armed Forces. When Larsen's application was denied, and he was removed from the chaplain corps, McGhee, who was Larsen's supervisor at Camp Anaconda in Iraq, said that a "grave injustice" had been done, and that "What happened to Chaplain Larsen -- to be honest, I think it's political. A lot of people think Wiccans are un-American, because they are ignorant about what Wiccans do."

MRFF informed Chaplain McGhee during a conference call last week of the discriminatory nature of the Missouri State Capitol event and the pledge on the part of its organizers to exclude non-Christians and asked him to reconsider his participation. McGhee has not responded to an email sent yesterday from MRFF asking if he still planned to participate.

This is not the first time the military has come under fire for work it has conducted on behalf of Focus on the Family and other Christian fundamentalist organizations.
ast August, the Pentagon's inspector general responded to a complaint filed in 2006 by Weinstein’s organization alleging that Defense Department officials violated military regulations by appearing in a video promoting Christian Embassy, a subsidiary of Campus Crusade for Christ.

The inspector general agreed and issued a scathing, 47-page report that was highly critical of senior Army and Air Force personnel for participating in the video while in uniform and on active duty.

The report recommended that Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack Catton, Army Brig. Gen Bob Caslen, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, Maj. Gen. Peter Sutton, and a colonel and lieutenant colonel whose names were redacted in the inspector general's report, "improperly endorsed and participated with a non-Federal entity while in uniform" and the men should be disciplined for misconduct. Caslen was formerly the deputy director for political-military affairs for the war on terrorism, directorate for strategic plans and policy, joint staff.. He now oversees the 4,200 cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point Caslen told DOD investigators he agreed to appear in the video upon learning other senior Pentagon officials had been interviewed for the promotional video.

The Army generals who appeared in the video appeared to be speaking on behalf of the military, but they did not obtain prior permission to appear in the video. They defended their actions, according to the inspector general's report, saying the "Christian Embassy had become a 'quasi-Federal entity,' since the DOD had endorsed the organization to General Officers for over 25 years."

Historically, the National Day of Prayer has been non-denominational. Former President Harry S Truman signed a bill proclaiming National Day of Prayer into law on April 17, 1952 so individuals of all faiths could pray together. In 1988, President Reagan designated the first day of May to be recognized as the National Day of Prayer.

But, for a number of years, the National Day of Prayer has been all about promoting fundamentalist Christianity. Dobson’s task force seems determined to turn the half-century old holiday into its own personal recruitment tool by proselytizing to members of the armed forces and the public in hopes of converting people to evangelical Christianity, according to task force documents posted on the group’s website.

The theme of Thursday’s 57th annual event is, “Prayer! America’s Strength and Shield,” which is based on Psalm 28:7: “The Lord is my strength and shield; my heart trusts in Him and I am helped.

Weinstein said the events scheduled for Thursday, specifically those planned by active-duty military officials, underscore the growing trend and the influence fundamentalists have inside the armed forces.

“When United States military personnel knowingly engage in deliberately public activities absolutely demanding the prerequisite of a written, official acknowledgement of acceptance and supremacy of one particular religious worldview to the total exclusion of all others, it is not merely an 'issue' or a 'problem,' Weinstein said in an interview. “Let's call it what it is; a national security threat internally to this country every bit as formidable in magnitude as those external national security threats posed by the Taliban, al Quaida, the insurrectionists and the jihadists. It's as simple and wretched as that."

In addition to the NDP Task Force events being held on military bases, there will be widespread military participation in non-military NDP events. In Washington state, military flyovers are scheduled to take place at the Calvary Chapel South ball field in Kent, according to the task force website, and the Christian radio station, Praise 106.5 FM, said the Whidbey Island Naval Station will be providing a flyover at the Skagit County event in Mount Vernon.

In order for a military flyover to take place, a form must be filled out and filed with the Pentagon describing the event and, after a review; the proposal is either approved or denied by Pentagon public affairs. The flyovers scheduled for The National Day of Prayer do not appear on the military's list of eligible flyover events, raising questions about whether the usual application process was completed and approved by the Pentagon.

Additionally, Marine color guards are scheduled to appear at the National Day of Prayer celebration in Bakersfield, Calif., and the Concert of Prayer in Wheeling, West Virginia. The Niagara Falls Air Reserve Base Honor Guard is slated to appear at the "Call To The Wall" in Wheatfield, New York. The National Day of Prayer Noon Rally at the Phoenix, City Hall features the Luke Air Force Base Honor Guard, and the Fort Huachuca Select Honor Guard will appear at a service in Patagonia, Arizona.

Becky Armstrong, a spokeswoman for the National Day of Prayer task force, dismissed charges that the task force was discriminating against non-Christians.

"All Americans are free to exercise their First Amendment rights to organize events that observe the National Day of Prayer in a manner that reflects their religious perspective,” Armstrong said.

Posted by mikki at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In another example of "let's be completely ridiculous, airline employees mindlessly follow the rules regardless of their stupidity

Air Marshals Denied Boarding Due To "No-fly List":


We've all heard the stories of ordinary airline passengers denied the right to fly because their name happens to match a name on the "no-fly list" kept by the Transportation Security Administration. But it appears that some federal air marshals, who are supposed to be on board as a protective measure, have also been denied boarding for the same reason. "In some cases, planes have departed without any coverage because the airline employees were adamant they would not [allow the marshal to] fly," an unidentified air marshal told The Washington Times. On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said it will start this week to implement a new program that allows airlines to store travelers' birthdate information, which should eliminate most of the watch-list misidentification problems. "This is good for travelers and for security, because as we make the checkpoint environment calmer, it becomes easier to spot individuals with hostile intent," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

"Hassles due to misidentification and the resulting necessity to stand in line to check in at the ticket counter [are] consistently among the deepest -- and most valid -- complaints of the traveling public," he said.

Posted by mikki at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Written by Harold Feld

RIAA and MS Teach Law Abiding Users to Hate DRM | Public Knowledge:


One of the biggest problems in public advocacy is translating abstract policy issues into the sort of concrete realities that bite the public on the rear end and get them to care. Happily, the RIAA and its ridiculous insistence on the most secure DRM imaginable — no matter how impractical, expensive, or user unfriendly — provides an endless series of such “teachable moments.” The recent announcement by MSN that it will shut down its music service and will therefore no longer refresh DRM keys is just such a moment.
MS found itself in a hard place. To offer the service it wanted, it needed to make commitments to the music industry about DRM. I do not think at the time MS understood this to mean that it would have a perpetual expense to maintain the service no matter what. Generally, if you decide the headaches aren’t worth it, you shut down.
But MS also made a clear commitment to its customers about the availability of the music and the ability to move it from one authorized device to another. No doubt MS had some fine print in its terms of service that give it the right to unilaterally terminate its service. But customers are still burned and they are not getting what they thought they understood MS to be selling.
As usual, the music industry that insists upon DRM protections at all costs and damn the customer have scant sympathy or even appreciation for the problem. As far as they are concerned, MS needs to meet its demands if it wants to license the songs, and customers need to live by their rules if they want to play the songs. Don’t like it, don’t buy it. Caveat emptor and all that.
Which is why the music industry strategy is so self-defeating. Does anyone imagine that this incident makes the public sympathetic to the music industry’s DRM demands? In a stroke, the music industry has taught another few million users that DRM means “Do Rip Me Off,” because these customers are not getting what they paid for AND, in no small part because of the music industry’s insane demands, are losing another legal source of music. This is a base of people who have demonstrated that they prefer to buy legally licensed music and abide by DRM than illegally download music for free. And their reward? They get ripped off and treated like garbage. When they complain, they are advised to circumvent the DRM by burning the music to CDS and then ripping the CDS. This hardly teaches respect for the law.
I do not expect the music industry to make the connection. An industry that routinely treats their customers with contempt in so many contexts and already believes everyone with a laptop and a broadband connection is a “pirate” is unlikely to understand how it is shooting itself in the foot. But it just pissed off a whole bunch of people who until now were willing to play by the RIAA’s rules.
I found the work-around to
Submitted by Wyatt Ditzler on April 30, 2008 - 1:38pm.
I found the work-around to keep a person’s music quite funny. Especially coming from the company that was responsible for the DRM.
However, would the work-around not constitute a violation of the DMCA to circumvent the DRM? And what is to keep MS or the RIAA from coming back and prosecuting those that follow the work-around instructions?
Login or register to post comments
Is MS doing this to avoid
Submitted by barry payne-eco... on May 1, 2008 - 6:40am.
Is MS doing this to avoid cannabilizing sales from Zune, which it says it’s making room for by cancelling MSN music? Why doesn’t MS offer selections from Zune to offset the losses to users from closing MSN music, or is MS engaging in forced migration to other sources or to upgrades the way it does with software?
Does the RIAA application of the DRM key favor some music over others in anti-competitive fashion, or does it distribute headaches equally and suppress all sales while encouraging illegal options or imperfect substitutes, including non-RIAA options?
If indeed RIAA is only shooting itself in the foot, then Harold seems to be raising the issue of copyright protection overkill to the detriment of all players involved, where both distribution outlet sales for content providers from the supply side are suppressed, as well as competition among those outlets for the benefit of users. But the RIAA has an incentive to suppress the latter and not the former, except when it gets incompetent and suppresses both.

Posted by mikki at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Significant Chunk of IP Address Space Hijacked by Notorious Mass Emailing Company:


nternet address space long ago issued to San Francisco Bay Packet Radio, an organization that was involved way back in the 1970s in testing ARPANET, a predecessor to the global commercial Internet that we all use today. That organization was given the rights to do whatever it wanted with 134.17.0.0/16 address block.

That entire swath of Internet space is now registered to an entity in Westminster, Colo., called SF Bay Packet Radio LLC, but except for a similar name, this company has no relation to San Francisco Bay Packet Radio… ? A review of records posted by both Spamhaus.org and e-mail provider Outblaze.com shows that a large number of Internet addresses on the company’s Internet space have been blacklisted for sending junk e-mail… Spamhaus spokesperson said that JKS Media/Media Breakaway had indeed hijacked the IP space from its previous owner, and that the IP space should be revoked under the rules set out by ARIN.

Posted by mikki at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)