The FBI has announced they are taking down (zombie) names and numbers in order to clean up the American cyberspace:
Today the Department of Justice and FBI announced the results of an ongoing cyber crime initiative to disrupt and dismantle “botherders� and elevate the public’s cyber security awareness of botnets. OPERATION BOT ROAST is a national initiative and ongoing investigations have identified over 1 million victim computer IP addresses.
Here’s a bit of irony, perhaps intentional.
The FBI also wants to thank our industry partners, such as the Microsoft Corporation and the Botnet Task Force, in referring criminal botnet activity to law enforcement.
Valiant Enterprises were told their model soldier of an IRA volunteer from 1921 had been removed from the eBay site because the figure “violated its hateful or discriminatory policy”.
The eBay policy states: “Sellers may not list items that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial or religious intolerance, or items that promote organisations with such views.”
The article makes the obvious comparison to other icons who fought the British empire, such as the American “revolutionaries”. And then it transitions to discussing the issue with modern Irish leaders.
Sinn Fein’s Alex Maskey said the decision to ban the item was unjustified.
He said: “To ban important historical facts like the Irish War of Independence is just bizarre. Especially when that time is history has been recognised and commemorated by the Irish government”.
Perhaps it would help if the figurine wasn’t holding a gun and ammo belts, but instead carrying a flag or in a striking pose that indicated national pride. It would be one thing if eBay tried to ban symbols of the IRA, such as the flags or name, but something about the militant garb makes it a more troubling and questionable icon. Likewise, I have no real issue with the Union Jack as it represents so much more than the militancy of the UK, but I don’t think I’d feel great about sales of a figurine of the British army with a Rapparee’s head dangling from his pike…then again, I bet there is no ban on British army figurines at all.
…after negotiations with AT&T, EFF has filed newly unredacted documents describing a secret, secure room in AT&T’s facilities that gave the National Security Agency (NSA) direct access to customers’ emails and other Internet communications
Secret, secure room makes me think of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, or maybe Alice’s Wonderland.
The timing might be coincidence a subpoena vote is about to be set for the US government’s wiretap records, according to the NYT:
The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote Thursday on whether to authorize subpoenas to gain access to Justice Department documents related to the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program, including a series of secret legal opinions.
The vote comes a week after Democratic leaders on a House Judiciary subcommittee threatened to issue subpoenas for the same documents.
Catamarans are perfectly normal boats. No, really.
But seriously, I was just talking with a sailing judge about the inherent problem in protests that involve kite board races.
Since the sail is technically not attached directly to the boat (it’s connected by line to the sailor, who is then strapped to a board), the starboard/port definition may depend entirely on the orientation of the sailor him/herself. My suggestion was to ask which side of the kite boarder’s body was windward, but even then it seems they could hop and float around to orient themselves a different way at a moment’s notice.
The good news is that even the most hi-tech catamarans now seem normal compared to the other stuff floating around (pun intended) out there.
