Christian sez, "Just now it has been announced in the press by the official Danish Anti-Piracy agency, Antipiratgruppen, that they are throwing in the towel and will seize their operations completely; to find and prosecute music copyright offenders. Here is a translation of the first published article in today's Danish press."

"We have to, because it is has been announced by the state court, that it takes very strong and concrete evidence to have these people prosecuted. We have simply not been able to establish the necessary evidence..."

An overview of Danish trials shows an extremely small possibility of getting sentenced - unless the the accused confesses. Four principal state court trials last year lead to three acquittals and only a single sentence for illegal file sharing. And this sentence only came into place because

"Out of the four cases we can establish, that the courts do not sentence owners of Internet connections simply because of technical identification of IP-adresses and technical recognition of files," they say.

Danish anti-piracy agency throw in the towel (Thanks, Christian!)

Michael Geist sez, "The latest round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (the secret copyright treaty) talks have now wrapped up with the usual bland press release confirming that the talks focused on Internet and criminal enforcement, indicating that the next meeting will be in Mexico in January 2010, and pledging to complete the treaty as quickly as possible. More interesting is the unofficial release - the leaked document that provided the information on what the Internet enforcement chapter actually says."

The Leaked ACTA Document (Thanks, Michael!)

You might have seen that the EU's "Telecoms Package" squeaked through with some protection for users' rights intact -- specifically, the proposal to allow "3-strikes" rules (whereby everyone in your house would lose internet access if any member was accused, without trial, of copyright infringement) was killed. But it's not as good as it could be, nor as good as it was before the content industry's lobbyists got their chums to rewrite it.

Jérémie Zimmemrmann writes,

The European Parliament and the Council of the EU came to an agreement on the "Telecoms Package" negotiations. They laid down legal and procedural guarantees against restrictions of Internet access. The new provision gives[1] "effective judicial protection and due process", guarantees "the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy" and the respect of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

However, the text only speaks of "a prior fair and impartial procedure" instead of a prior ruling by the judicial authorities, guaranteed by the original "amendment 138", and contains loopholes and ambiguities. The invalidation of freedom-killer measures such as "three strikes policies" will now depend on interpretation by the European Court of Justice and national courts. Moreover, the text only relates to measures taken by Member States and thereby fails to bar telecom operators and entertainment industries from knocking down the founding principle of Net neutrality.

Europe only goes half-way in protecting Internet rights.

Michael Geist sez, "According to the official agenda, in a few hours the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement talks will continue on the Internet provisions and then move into the criminal provisions chapter. It is worth highlighting the ongoing criminal provisions as well. As previously leaked, the U.S. and Japan supplied the initial text for this chapter. Their proposal included extending criminal enforcement to both (1) cases of a commercial nature; and (2) cases involving significant willful copyright and trademark infringement even where there is no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain. In other words, non-commercial infringement could lead to criminal penalties. Plus, jail time for unauthorized camcording of films and even for fake DVD and CD packaging."

ACTA Negotiations, Day Two: What's On Tap (Thanks, Michael!)

James Hughes sez, "The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies is holding a seminar on the 'Biopolitics of Popular Culture' December 4, 2009 in Irvine, California. The seminar will explore the biopolitics that are implicit in depictions of the future, enhanced humans and emerging technology in literature, film, gaming and television. Speakers include Annalee Newitz, Richard Kadrey, Natasha Vita-More and Jamais Cascio, as well as writers for TV and film, game designers, artists and culture critics."

Biopolitics of Popular Culture Seminar (Thanks, Jim!)

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

• * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

• * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

• * That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

• * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

Next: More on secret copyright treaty: your kids could go to jail for noncommercial music sharing

I pulled up my sample ballot for Minneapolis elections today, and found something absolutely fabulous. Take a look at the second-from-last candidate. Specifically, his party affiliation. God, I love this town. The ballot just gets better when you know what an Edgertonite is.

I've written before here about the impact that Sue Townsend's comic Adrian Mole novels have had on my life since I was a young teenager, so it'll come as no surprise to learn that I was completely delighted by the latest volume, Adrian Mole: the Prostrate Years, which is sweeter, darker, more sentimental and more grim than the earlier installments.

For the uninitiated, the Adrian Mole books chronicle the life of a young man born near Leicester, whose dysfunctional family, intellectual impulses, gormless bumbling and terrible poetry make for a meaty, multi-volume series that serves as a wicked history of Britain and the world since the 1980s.

In the latest volume, Adrian is nearly 40, and is increasingly estranged from his (latest) wife, the mysterious and sexy Daisy, who seduced Adrian in Weapons of Mass Destruction. Their five year old is a High-School Musical-crazed monster, their finances are in tatters, and they're living with Adrian's elderly parents in their converted pigsty. Adrian's mother is writing a fictionalized agony memoir called A Girl Called Shit, and the lovely bookstore Adrian works at is going bust. And there's something wrong with Adrian's prostate, a problem compounded by all the friends and acquaintances who insist on calling it a "prostrate."

And yet, there's plenty that's sweet here. Adrian is figuring out fatherhood. His childhood flame, Pandora Braithwaite (now an MP) is back in his life. His half-brother Brett is back, his career as a hedge-fund manager in ruins. His son, Glenn, on deployment in Afghanistan, is shaping up to be a critically minded sharp young man. And Bernard, the alcoholic librophile who's helping out at the store, turns out to have quite a good approach to life that Adrian stands to learn much from.

Reading these books every year or two is a magic experience. Townsend recounts and recasts recent history in a way that makes you realize just how funny and tragic it all is. Townsend's vision has recently failed her, but she continues to write these books at an amazing clip. It's a real inspiration, as well as superb entertainment.

Adrian Mole: the Prostrate Years

Entire Adrian Mole series

Lobbyists at the EU have gutted the definition of "open" (part of a proposal to require more open standards and open source tools in European government) to mean "the willingness of persons, organisations or other members of a community of interest to share knowledge." This meaningless drivel replaces a more robust definition that included, "The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc.)."

According to this line of thinking, if everyone were forced to use Microsoft Word for document interchange, then that would provide interoperability. Except that it wouldn't, because interoperability implies at least two *different* things are are operating together: self-interoperability is trivial. Version 2's "homogeneity" is better described as a monopoly and a monoculture - and the last two decades have taught just how dangerous those are.

It's not hard to see why some companies might prefer the wording of Version 2. Version 1 specifically says: "The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis." This would allow alternative implementations from the free software community, which is unable to pay royalties. The current wording, which allows patented, proprietary solutions as part of the "open continuum" would mean that free software could not compete. How convenient.

EU Wants to Re-define "Closed" as "Nearly Open" (via /.)

Digby does a great job of rounding up the criticisms of outspoken Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson, who is being pilloried for such rhetorical crimes a calling Enron lobbyists "whores" (yes, it's an insult to whores, but that's not what's got some people upset):

You see, it's one thing for Republicans to give speeches on the floor of the House saying that Democrats want to murder the elderly or that they plan to create sex clinics and force teenage girls to have abortions. That is simply folksy language these people use to communicate with their people. When Newt Gingrich blamed Susan Smith's murdering of her own children on liberalism, Lady Frothenberg understood that it was harmless hyperbole. When Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and the rest of the conservative movement leadership say daily that Barack Obama is a black racist who hates America, it's simply their way, and we all understand that it is just entertainment for the masses who require this type of crude stimulation.

But when one calls a former Enron lobbyist a K-Street whore on an obscure radio show, one has simply gone too far, sirrah, and it will not be tolerated.

There will be a town hall meeting this evening led by Pastor Dick Cheney to discuss the possibility of witches in the village and what types of enhanced interrogation might be used to determine the breadth of the infiltration. Our deep sense of decency, morality and civility demand it. And thank you once again, Lady Frothenberg, for bringing this egregious breach of proper behavior to our attention.

Whatever the rest of you do, don't encourage this miscreant Alan Grayson to do more of this boorish behavior by donating money at his crude web site: Congressmanwithguts.com. If you do, I certainly hope you don't plan on being invited into the any of the finer homes and establishments in the Village because you just aren't welcome there!

Lady Frothenberg Laces Up Her Corset (via Making Light)

French copyfighter Jérémie Zimmermann sez,

The negotiations on the Telecoms Package may come to a close this Wednesday. The Council of the European Union is still pushing for 'three strikes"' policies in Europe but is also attempting to allow private corporations to restrict citizens' Internet access. Will the European Parliament continue to hide behind a disputable legal argumentation provided by the rapporteur Catherine Trautmann, and accept the unacceptable for the future of Internet access in Europe?

A campaign page has been set up to allow everyone to contact Members of the European Parliament and urge them to refuse any proposal from the Council allowing "three strikes" policies in Europe, and to explicitly protect EU citizens' freedom to access the Net.

The new version of the compromise amendment presented by the Council of the EU still allows for restrictions of Internet access such as "three strikes" policies in Europe. Moreover, contrarily to the Parliament's version, the Council's proposal also permits private corporations to restrict Internet access, notably enabling entertainment industries to pressure Internet service providers in order to police the Net.

(Thanks, Jérémie!)

I'm giving two talks in the UK this week -- the first in Cambridge, as part of the Arcadia Seminar, held at Robinson College; the second is at Sheffield, as part of the DocFest premiere of RIP: A Remix Manifesto, a documentary on copyfighting and art that features some interviews with me. Hope to see you at them!

Cambridge: 3 November 2009, 6PM
Arcadia Seminar: 3rd Nov. "Thinking Like a Dandelion: Cory Doctorow on copyright, Creative Commons and creativity"
Umney Theatre, Robinson College, Cambridge. Please email mh569@cam.ac.uk if you are planning to attend.

Sheffield: 5 November 2009, 2:25PM-4:30PM
RiP! A Remix Manifesto
Showroom 1, Sheffield DocFest (tickets)

Update: CORRECTION -- I'm at Sheffield Doc/Fest from 1425h-1630h, not 1600-1800h as previously stated!

A new British independent poll conducted by Ipsos Mori concluded that the people who do the most illegal downloading also buy the most music. This is in line with many other studies elsewhere and is easy to understand: people who are music superfans do more of everything to do with music: they see more live shows, listen to more radio, buy more CDs, buy more botlegs of live shows, buy more t-shirts, talk about music more, do more downloading -- all of it.

And of course, these are the people the music industry's supergeniuses have set their sights upon for bizarre enforcement regimes like the one that British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has promised: anyone who lives in a house that generates three or more copyright infringement notices will be barred from Internet access.

"The latest approach from the Government will not help prop up an ailing music industry. Politicians and music companies need to recognise that the nature of music consumption has changed, and consumers are demanding lower prices and easier access," said Peter Bradwell, from the think-tank Demos, which commissioned the new poll conducted by Ipsos Mori.

However, music industry figures insist the figures offer a skewed picture. The poll suggested the Government's plan to disconnect illegal downloaders if they ignore official warning letters could deter people from internet piracy, with 61 per cent of illegal downloaders surveyed admitting they would be put off downloading music illegally by the threat of having their internet service cut off for a month.

"The people who file-share are the ones who are interested in music," said Mark Mulligan of Forrester Research. "They use file-sharing as a discovery mechanism. We have a generation of young people who don't have any concept of music as a paid-for commodity," he continued. "You need to have it at a price point you won't notice."

Illegal downloaders 'spend the most on music', says poll (Thanks, Libbi!)

Update here, with Q&A.

Rachel Maddow, host of all that is worth watching on television, very kindly invited me back to The Rachel Maddow Show tonight for a "Moment of Geek" on the big ICANN news today: starting soon, domain name extensions will be available in non-Latin character sets. Chinese, Greek, Arabic, or any one of the more than 20 official languages in India. In other words, the alphabet you're reading this blog post in will no longer be the default for web addresses.

You can watch the video here.

When Ms. Maddow's team invited me in earlier today, the first thing I did was phone Hong Kong-based journalist and global 'net culture researcher Rebecca MacKinnon (Twitter: @rmack), who was in Seoul attending the big ICANN meeting. She has written extensively on this topic, and helped me parse the news.

First up for the "non-Latin" extensions? Country-specific domain names (.cn for China, for instance). Later on, everything else (.com and the like). Don't expect to see "dot china" in Chinese characters right away, explained Rebecca: starting November 16, registrars can begin to apply, but it'll be a while before the domains show up in the wild.

Some US tech reporters covering the news ran with but what about meeee! headlines. "This is a bad day for the English language," wrote one. Well, someone call the whaambulance -- it's an awesome day if you read in Farsi or Hebrew. It's not about our language, it's about the languages spoken by the next billion people to come online, and most of them don't speak English or write in a language based on our Latin character set.

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez,

Boing Boing readers may remember a year ago when the great State of Oregon asserted copyright over the Oregon Revised Statutes, sending take-down notices prohibiting reuse by Justia and Public.Resource.Org. In a shining example of democracy, the legislature held hearings, heard us out, and unanimously waived copyright on the laws. The results of opening up the law were pretty spectacularly demonstrated when a 2nd-year law student, Robb Shecter, created the beautiful OregonLaws.Org (compare to the official site for a night and day look).

Well, those copyright assertions are back, this time by the Attorney General, who asserted ownership over the (for real!) Attorney General's Public Record and Public Meeting Manual. I spent last week in Oregon meeting with law school faculty and giving lectures at 3 universities on the topic of who owns the law.

The results have been compiled into a formal pleading which we are submitting to the Attorney General for his consideration. He seems like a good guy, and we've asked him to issue an official Attorney General Opinion on when the state may assert copyright, covering not only his Public Meeting manual, but also the Secretary of State's Administrative Rules, the Fire Marshall's Fire Code, and the Building Codes. We have quite a few of those documents already on line, so there is an actual issue on the table and we're hoping he'll do the research and make a ruling.

The Oregon Question (Thanks, Carl!)

I have an op-ed in today's Times about the British plan to disconnect people from the internet if someone in their home is accused -- without proof -- of infringing copyright, and how utterly unjust this is.

Even more radical is the Mandelson proposal to disconnect entire families from the internet if a single member -- or a neighbour who uses their internet connection -- is accused, without proof, of violating copyright. Leave aside the fundamental injustice of collective punishment, a practice so abhorrent that it is outlawed in the Geneva Convention; think instead of the utter disproportionality of this.

The internet is an integral part of our children's education; it's critical to our employment; it's how we stay in touch with distant relatives. It's how we engage with government. It's the single wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. It isn't just a conduit for getting a few naughty free movies, it is the circulatory system of the information age.

Denying physics won't save the video stars

Rishab sez, "Knowledge Ecology International is organising a petition to President Obama to make the US position in negotiations on the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement transparent to the public. Boing Boing readers may remember previous posts on ACTA, the 'throw people in jail for sharing' agreement being developed in secret by rich countries who find the semi-public consultations in forums like WIPO tiresome."

Obama's administration has refused to disclose the drafts of ACTA on the grounds of "national security" (yes, really!), but we know from leaks and memos that it includes universal surveillance of the net; mandatory loss of Internet connections without trial for households where one member is accused of violating copyright; and a duty to search your laptop and personal devices at the border for infringing material.

Petition to President Obama, regarding transparency of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Thanks, Rishab!)

Glyn sez, "TalkTalk, the second largest internet service provider in the UK, has threatened to launch legal action if the government implements three strikes [ed: the plan by which whole households will be disconnected from the net if one member is accused of violating copyright]. They claimed the government's plan was based on users being 'guilty until proven innocent.'

"The approach is based on the principle of 'guilty until proven innocent' and substitutes proper judicial process for a kangaroo court,"

"We know this approach will lead to wrongful accusations."

TalkTalk threatens legal action over Mandelson's filesharing plan (Thanks, Glyn!)

Lord Mandelson, Britain's business secretary, has promised to create a system of collective punishment without judicial review for people accused -- but not convicted -- of illegal file-sharing. Under Mandelson's proposal, anyone living in the same house as someone who has been accused of three acts of infringement will be denied access to the Internet (at the expense of their education, employment, and access to government, health information, distant relatives, etc) even though no judge has reviewed any evidence or wrongdoing, let alone entering a judgement.

Hilariously, Mandelson expects that this will work to reduce file-sharing. Similar measures -- removing websites without judicial oversight, mass lawsuits, even industry-wide prohibitions on whole classes of legitimate technology -- have totally failed to reduce infringement in the 14 years since the first WIPO Copyright Treaty. Indeed, these increasingly Draconian measures have merely deepened the alienation that the public feels from copyright -- to the detriment of all rightsholders.

But, for unspecified reasons, Mandelson believes that cutting whole families off from the information society on the strength of unsubstantiated accusations will cause them to embrace the copyright industries and buy their products.

"It must become clear that the days of consequence-free widespread online infringement are over," Mandelson said. "Technical measures will be a last resort and I have no expectation of mass suspensions resulting."

The legislation is expected to come into force in April next year.

The effectiveness of the warning letters to persistent illegal filesharers will be monitored for the first 12 months. If illegal filesharing has not dropped by 70% by April 2011, then cutting off people's internet connections could be introduced three months later, from the summer of that year.

Lord Mandelson sets date for blocking filesharers' internet connections (Thanks, Brady!)

A Harvard psych study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology shows that when people are present during torture, they gradually come to believe the torture victim is guilty as a way of assuaging their consciences for their complicity in torture:

Participants in the study met a woman suspected of cheating to win money. The woman was then "tortured" by having her hand immersed in ice water while study participants listened to the session over an intercom. She never confessed to anything, but the more she suffered during the torture, the guiltier she was perceived to be...

"Our research suggests that torture may not uncover guilt so much as lead to its perception," says Gray. "It is as though people who know of the victim's pain must somehow convince themselves that it was a good idea -- and so come to believe that the person who was tortured deserved it."

Not all torture victims appear guilty, however. When participants in the study only listened to a recording of a previous torture session -- rather than taking part as witnesses of ongoing torture -- they saw the victim who expressed more pain as less guilty. Gray explains the different results as arising from different levels of complicity.

"Those who feel complicit with the torture have a need to justify the torture, and so link the victim's pain to blame," says Gray. "On the other hand, those distant from torture have no need to justify it and so can sympathize with the suffering of the victim, linking pain to innocence."

Pain Of Torture Can Make Innocent Seem Guilty

Thug life, Kabul-style, courtesy of American tax dollars. The New York Times reports that "Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country's booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials."

A related story out in tomorrow's paper covers the push for more US troops in Afghanistan's cities and agricultural areas, where the poppies that support the Taliban are cash crop numero uno.

Boing Boing readers: wonder what kind of cellphone he's using in the photo above? Better yet: your caption, please! A brick of CIA-funded heroin to the winner, but you'll have to fly to Bagram to pick it up. [ via Wired Danger Room on Twitter. ]

Mother Jones senior editor Michael Mechanic writes in with this update on the "Yes Men pwn the US Chamber of Commerce" story I blogged about last week, which Cory further updated here. Michael says,

Kate Sheppard [of Mother Jones] was at the fake US Chamber of Commerce press conference in DC where a Yes Man, posing as a Chamber rep, claimed the Chamber was reversing its draconian position on climate change, which has caused lots of big Chamber members -- Apple, Nike, Exelon, and others -- to quit the national business group. But then a REAL Chamber PR man arrived at the meeting to declare it a fraud. (And Sheppard ended up on Maddow that night).

Today, Sheppard reports that the Chamber is suing its impersonators: "The defendants are not merry pranksters tweaking the establishment," the Chamber said in a press release issued with the suit. "Instead, they deliberately broke the law in order to further commercial interest in their books, movies, and other merchandise."

Mother Jones stories on the US Chamber (here's an index):
* Chamber Sues Yes Men
* Chamber Uses Yes Men 'Attack' to Fundraise

Here's a related item in the New Yorker.

Image: by Wikimedia Commons user Tavis used under a CC License

A new augmented reality app from Layar allows Android and iPhone 3GS users to view recovery.gov contract dollars at play work in the real world.

Image above: an example of what those happy blue bailout bubbles look like, bouncing about on the thoroughly bailed-out streets of Washington, DC. My only criticism so far (I haven't tried the apps): instead of blue circles as representational icons, the designers really should have chosen taxpayers' tears. Snip:

Layar is an application that overlays your view of the real world with waypoints representing your favorite coffee place, the movie theatre you're trying to find, or in this case, where some of that $787 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is going. If you have an iPhone 3GS or Android device you can install the Layar app for free and then search for "recovery" or "sunlight" within Layar to find this layer. The layer works best near large cities where you are most likely to find recovery contracts.

Recovery.gov Augmented Reality Mashup [Sunlight Labs, via Micah Sifry]

Layar Reality Browser [Layar]

Michael from the Open Rights Group sez, "Open Rights Group has lined up Bruce Schneier for its next fundraiser event on Friday 4 December. The title is 'The Future of Privacy: Rethinking Security Trade-offs' and he'll be explaining why data is the pollution problem of the information age and how we should deal with it."

We live in a unique time in our technological history. The cameras are ubiquitous, but we can still see them. ID checks are everywhere, but we still know they're going on. Computers inherently generate personal data, and everyone leaves an audit trail everywhere they go.

Bruce Schneier, internationally-renowned cryptographer, technologist and author, will share his vision of current and future technologies' effects on privacy. Schneier rejects the traditional "security vs. privacy" dichotomy in favor of a more subtle and realistic one.

Data is the pollution problem of the information age and we need to start thinking about how to deal with it.

When? Doors open at 1830, Friday 4 December 2009

Where? St Albans Centre, 18 Brooke St, London, London EC1N 7RD (More info here)

Come see Bruce Schneier talk in London (Thanks, Michael!)

Over the weekend, the White House new media team announced (via AP) that whitehouse.gov now runs on the open source content management system Drupal. Tim O'Reilly puts this news into context:

This move is obviously a big win for open source. As John Scott of Open Source for America (a group advocating open source adoption by government, to which I am an advisor) noted in an email to me: "This is great news not only for the use of open source software, but the validation of the open source development model. The White House's adoption of community-based software provides a great example for the rest of the government to follow."

John is right. While open source is already widespread throughout the government, its adoption by the White House will almost certainly give permission for much wider uptake. Particularly telling are the reasons that the White House made the switch

Thoughts on the Whitehouse.gov switch to Drupal [radar.oreilly.com]

British journalist Matt Salusbury decided to investigate the information that the London police had gathered on him as part of their intimidation campaign against activists and protestors -- the Met spends over GBP9MM/year gathering "intelligence" on nonviolent, noncriminal demonstrators -- and discovered a file filled with paranoid notes about his presence at lawful public gatherings.

I don't really understand how or why the Met has become so pants-wettingly scared of peaceful protest. I have spent my life in various protest movements, and can count the number of violent or out-of-control demonstrations I've seen on the fingers of one hand, and in every instance, the loss of control began when the police decided to suddenly and forcefully break up the event.

Now Salusbury has produced a guide to getting your file from the London cops. Something we should all do, I think.

This all seems part of the change in the British government seeing its role as representing people to seeing its role as managing people.

After two Data Protection Act requests to the police, I'm bemused rather than outraged to discover 17 extant entries on me in the Metropolitan police's Crimint (criminal intelligence) database. I feature in the database because I was "seen" or "observed" at various public events. In Crimint's most recently recorded entry on me in 2007, I was stopped and searched approaching an arms fair protest that I was reporting on, and found to have my press card on me. There is no suggestion in any of my Crimint reports of any remotely criminal activity.

My Crimint database entries suggest that the Met's forward intelligence team (FIT) are interested in who's turning up to anti-arms fair demos and what they're doing there, which journalists are covering protests, and who's with the volunteer legal observers who monitor and gather evidence on arrests and other police activity on demos (usually from a safe distance). In most of my Crimint reports, I seem to be of interest to the police because I'm taking an interest in them. Much of their data is alarmingly inaccurate or poorly recorded, they get basic facts - like the colours of my bike and rucksack - wrong, and one Crimint entry finished in mid-sentence.

FIT surveillance is deliberately obvious, its "overt surveillance" carried out by police in uniform, or by uniformed civilian photographers hired by the Met. To me, it looks as if their attention's aimed at ensuring that new faces don't feel like showing up on demos or actions again, that pub landlords and other venue managers become reluctant to let activist groups use their meeting spaces, or that bands get cold feet about playing at anti-capitalist benefit gigs again... One entry on my Crimint file records a conversation I had with a City police officer back in 2002, who seemed preoccupied by me "taking note of officer's shoulder numbers", and that's a pretty good place to start. Most data I've got out of the police is the result of me scribbling down a note of the shoulder number of the police officers who have photographed me or appeared to take notes about me, the time and location, and what event they were policing, and putting these details in a letter requesting this "personal information", invoking the Data Protection Act

Protesting against police tactics

On today's episode of the Search Engine podcast, Jesse Brown talks to Konrad von Finckenstein, Canada's chief telecoms regulator -- the man who brought down the recent ruling allowing Canadian ISPs to throttle their users. In the interview, Commissioner von Finckenstein arrogantly dismisses Canadians who are threatened by this ruling as "Internet hogs" and pretends that he hasn't heard any of the research that shows Canada is badly lagging the rest of the developed world in Internet access, paying far more to get far less than others, despite the enormous public subsidy Canada's ISPs have received in the form of exclusive rights-of-way and access to taxpayer-built infrastructure. He also purports to know nothing of the existing abusive policies used by Canada's big ISPs. If this is the man running Canada's Internet policy, it's no wonder that Canada's net is in such sorry shape.

The Neutral Throttle? An interview with CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein

MP3 link

Davide sez, "Guess how Italian politicians take care of comments on YouTube against them? On 22 October, Cuffaro laid charges with regard to the first 4609 comments on a video clip on You Tube, entitled 'Costanzo Show: Totò Cuffaro aggredisce Giovanni Falcone' (video clip posted on You Tube on 14 January 2007). Antonio Di Pietro decided to pay defence for all."

We will defend you all from Cuffaro (Thanks, Davide!)

Boing Boing reader Ken Ward caught Friday's Rachel Maddow Show segment, in which I joined Ms. Maddow for a discussion around John McCain's "Internet Freedom Act."

McCain, who once described himself as technologically "illiterate" and is the single largest senate recipient of telecom lobby money, is now campaigning against the net neutrality fundamentals recently reaffirmed by FCC actions.

Our reader suggests another reason McCain is dead-wrong: "At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, I have to point out that McCain's positions is, in fact, a danger to National Security." Ken's email to Boing Boing, after the jump. Your thoughts welcomed in the comments.

The March, 1934 issue of Modern Mechanix introduced this remarkable Depression-era chess-variant that pitted "agitators" against "engineers." Love how the entire historical zeitgeist appears to have been captured in 16 chessmen.

MODERN as tomorrow morning's headlines, a newly simplified form of the game of chess has for its game board the Modern World, and for its pieces Farmers, Mechanics, Engineers and even Agitators struggling against forces symbolized by opposing Armies, Bankers, Radio, Press, Law and Middlemen trying to become Rankers.

The play, which is solely a matter of skill, centers around opposing forces trying to dominate one neutral piece called Government while either the red or white side, as the antagonists are named, is in power.

The game may be played by either two, three, or four persons and is substantially like chess. But gone are the Pawns, the Knights, and the Kings and Queens,

Agitators, Engineers Are Chessmen (Mar, 1934)

Eternally excellent Rachel Maddow allowed me to join her tonight (pretty much the only reason I own a TV now is to watch her show) for a discussion about John McCain's "Internet Freedom Act," also known as "The Great Telecom Reacharound of 2009."

Why is the former presidential candidate who once described himself as technologically "illiterate" suddenly so worried about the nerdy details of internet architecture? Follow the money.

A Sunlight Foundation Report released yesterday says McCain received more telecom lobbying money than any other senator, over the past two years. We ought to stop calling him the senator from Arizona and start calling him the senator from AT&T.

Video: McCain Pushes Agenda Against Web Freedom (The Rachel Maddow Show)

Watch Senator Al "Kick-Ass" Franken wipe up the floor with this health-care-lobby shill from the Hudson Institute who claimed that universal healthcare would increase medical bankruptcies. This is the perfect mix of being sensible and being devastatingly sarcastic, and I love him for it. Go Al!

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) humbles Hudson Institute dilettante over health care bankruptcies

Things look bad for the European Internet: "3 strikes" (the entertainment industry's proposal for a law that requires ISPs to disconnect whole households if one member is accused -- without evidence or trial -- of three copyright infringements) is gaining currency. Efforts to make 3-strikes illegal are being thwarted by the European bureaucracy in the EC.

The Pirate Party, which holds a seat in the European Parliament, proposed legislation that said, essentially, that no one could be disconnected from the Internet without a fair trial. When the proposal when to the European Commission (a group of powerful, unelected bureaucrats who have been heavily lobbied by the entertainment industry), they rewrote it so that disconnection can take place without trial or other due process.

On the national level, France's Constitutional Court have approved the latest version of the French 3-strikes rule, HADOPI, which has created a kind of grudging, joke oversight by the courts (before your family's Internet connection is taken away, a judge gives the order 1-2 minutes' worth of review, and you aren't entitled to counsel and the rules of evidence don't apply -- the NYT called it similar to "traffic court"). Under this rule, there is now a national list of French people who are not allowed to be connected to the Internet; providing them with connectivity is a crime.

The only bright light is that this will play very badly in the national elections coming up in many European jurisdictions; the Swedes, in particular, are likely to kick the hell out of the MPs who voted for criminal sanctions for downloading and replace them with Pirate Party candidates, Greens, and members of other parties with a liberal stance on copyright.

3-Strikes For Pirates Makes European Comeback Tour

Fershteh Ghazi (@iranbaan) tweets that Hamed Derakhshan, brother of jailed Iranian blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakshan, just said on @bbcpersian his brother has been held in solitary confinement for 10 months. Hoder was first arrested on November 1, 2008.

Yesterday, Hoder's father wrote a letter to Iran's judiciary to appeal for his son's release. That letter was published on the website of Salaam, a reformist newspaper from Iran. (both items via Cyrus Farivar).

Researchers found that male McCain voters experienced a drop in testosterone after the tribe leader they were backing lost the election. "The findings indicate that male voters exhibit biological responses to the realignment of a country's dominance hierarchy as if they participated in an interpersonal dominance contest," wrote the researchers, whose paper appeared in the PLoS ONE peer-reviewed journal.

The present study investigated voters' testosterone responses to the outcome of the 2008 United States Presidential election. 183 participants provided multiple saliva samples before and after the winner was announced on Election Night. The results show that male Barack Obama voters (winners) had stable post-outcome testosterone levels, whereas testosterone levels dropped in male John McCain and Robert Barr voters (losers). There were no significant effects in female voters.

Dominance, Politics, and Physiology: Voters' Testosterone Changes on the Night of the 2008 United States Presidential Election (Via NY Mag Daily Intel)

David Hlynsky's striking collection of store windows from Communist Europe is a peek into a weird, bleak, and sometimes comical view of consumer culture in a non-consumer society:

Between 1986 and 1990, I made approximately 8,000 color, Hasselblad images on the streets of Communist Europe. I purposely avoided dramatic moments and newsworthy events. In a cityscape without commercial seduction, banality seemed to signify everything. At first I was interested in simple pedestrian traffic. Later I doggedly documented store windows. These seemed to signify the real difference between East and West. Without the garish ad campaigns of the West, these streets felt more neutral... devoid of trumped up and pumped up urgency.

David Hlynsky Communist store windows (Thanks, Zoran!)

An amazing piece in Mother Jones on how the No Child Left Behind Act made it possible for military recruiters to gather personal data on millions of unsuspecting American teens.

When I asked him whether he'd ever talked to a military recruiter, Travers, a 19-year-old African American with a buzz cut, a crisp white T-shirt, and a diamond stud in his left ear, smiled wryly. "To get to lunch in my high school, you had to pass recruiters," he said. "It was overwhelming." Then he added, "I thought the recruiters had too much information about me. They called me, but I never gave them my phone number."

Nor did he give the recruiters his email address, Social Security number, or details about his ethnicity, shopping habits, or college plans. Yet they probably knew all that, too. In the past few years, the military has mounted a virtual invasion into the lives of young Americans. Using data mining, stealth websites, career tests, and sophisticated marketing software, the Pentagon is harvesting and analyzing information on everything from high school students' GPAs and SAT scores to which video games they play. Before an Army recruiter even picks up the phone to call a prospect like Travers, the soldier may know more about the kid's habits than do his own parents.

A Few Good Kids? (Mother Jones, via @dangerroom; image: Nina Berman/Redux, via Mother Jones)

Clark Kent told us about this "thought-provoking, artful schematic that explains the differences in basic political philosophy between progressives and conservatives."

It was created by David McCandless and Stefanie Posavec, and appears in The Visual Miscellaneum, which comes out on November 10.

I'm looking forward to the book. Below are some of the other infographics that are in it:

Sequouia, a company that makes many of the electronic voting machines used in the US and elsewhere, has inadvertently leaked much of the secret source-code that powers its systems. The first cut at analysis shows what looks like illegal election-rigging code ("code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of the election") in the source.

Sequoia blew it on a public records response. We (basically EDA) have election databases from Riverside County that Sequoia insisted on "redacting" first, for which we paid cold cash. They appear instead to have just vandalized the data as valid databases by stripping the MS-SQL header data off, assuming that would stop us cold.

They were wrong.

The Linux "strings" command was able to peel it apart. Nedit was able to digest 800meg text files. What was revealed was thousands of lines of MS-SQL source code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of the election, in violation of a bunch of clauses in the FEC voting system rulebook banning interpreted code, machine modified code and mandating hash checks of voting system code.

I've got it all organized for commentary and download in wiki form.

This is the first time we can legally study a voting system's innards without NDAs or court-ordered secrecy.

Sequoia Voting Systems hacks self in foot (via MeFi)

Over the past two days, Internet advocates in Mexico have been voicing outrage over a proposed 3% telecommunications tax in a number of ways -- including flooding Twitter with the hashtag "internetnecesario," shorthand for "the internet is a basic neccesity." Here's one English language blog post from one blogger who believes the tax would be terrible news, and here is another in Spanish. Background on the politics in this Reuters item. (image via trendsmap.com, thanks @wordwardness).

Just how would one construct a Glenn Beck Halloween Mask using little more than an adult diaper and a printout from these very internets? Ethan Persoff of "Comics With Problems" fame would be happy to show you how. WARNING: site contains disturbing images of Glenn Beck's face, and a photo of a fellow (not Glenn Beck) lying on a couch wearing nothing but a Glenn Beck Diaper Mask over his visage and yet another Glenn Beck Diaper over his manparts. WHICH OF THESE IMAGES IS MORE UNSETTLING? Why don't you tell me in the comments. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Presenting the Glenn Beck Diaper Mask, Halloween 2009 (ep.tc)

Do you smell a terrorist? Did you know that "terrorism is a crime?" This iWatch PSA stars a cast of pretend-earnest actors encouraging you to rat out your neighbor, "if you see, hear, or smell something suspicious." Don't hesitate -- "let law enforcement determine if it's a threat, (says this fellow, who plays a sex-crazed Mr Pringles when he's not playing a fear-mongering alarmist)" and "let the experts decide." Be sure to report on anyone drawing important buildings, a favorite tactic of terrorists with an artistic bent!

Here's Fox News' pretend news story that explains iWatch.

Do you recognize any of the other actors in this waste of money PSA?

UPDATE: Am I wrong, or is the guy who says he's "Chris Matthews" in the iWatch campaign (left) the same guy who calls himself "Michael Busch" at UCBComedy (right)? It seems suspicious. Should I let law enforcement determine if it's a threat, and let the experts decide?

iWatch PSA

A new update in the legal battle over Shepard Fairey's iconic Obama poster, following Friday's surprise revelation by Fairey (BB post here) -- this time, no surprise:

The Associated Press today filed a motion seeking to amend its Answer, Affirmative Defenses and Counterclaims from last March in the lawsuit filed against the news cooperative by Shepard Fairey and Obey Giant Art, Inc., based on Fairey's recent revelations that he fabricated and destroyed, or attempted to destroy relevant evidence and other newly discovered information in the lawsuit. The AP disputes Fairey's most recent allegations that he made a "mistake" about which AP photo he used to create the Obama Hope poster, saying such allegations are "simply not credible."

Today's AP release, in entirety, here. The federal court filing and related material are here.

Previously: Legal battle over Shepard Fairey Obama poster takes an unexpected turn.

Becky sez,

What do the British do when their political system turns out to be full of MPs on the make?

Why, they make a joke of it.

A series of videos have appeared on the web this week taking the mickey out of the ridiculous claims some British Members of Parliament have made on their expense accounts, after Boing Boing and others campaigned to have details of MPs expenses released back in January.

If you're not from the UK and you're wondering why they feature ducks a lot, read this.

The videos are directed by John Lloyd (the man behind British comedy classics like Blackadder and Spitting Image) and they've been made to support the Open Up! campaign for Parliamentary Reform. Watch the videos, and if you're based in the UK, you can sign the petition calling for change.

openupnowdotorg's Channel (Thanks, Becky!)

David Weinberger sez, "The Berkman Center, under the guidance of Yochai Benkler, has produced for the FCC a 200-page report on broadband around the world. The report is now open for public comment. In an interview on the Berkman site, Benkler gives the "take-away":

I think there are two pieces of news that will be most salient for people as they look at this report. The first is a response to the question: 'how are we [the U.S.] doing?', and the answer is that we're overall middle-of-the-pack, no better. The second responds to the question: 'What policies and practices worked for countries that have done well?', and the answer to that is: there is good evidence to support the proposition that a family of policies called 'open access,' that encourage competition, played an important role.

PDF: Next Generation Connectivity: A review of broadband Internet transitions and policy from around the world (Thanks, David!)

We've been following artist Shepard Fairey's work here on Boing Boing for some time now. A disclaimer, first: I love his work, we have mutual friends, he strikes me as a stand-up guy.

Last year, Pesco was among the first to blog the Obama "Hope" poster which quickly grew far more popular than anyone anticipated. The iconic artwork spawned street cottage industries worldwide, and became an official element in the presidential campaign.

Then, the Associated Press (the same DRM-happy copyright bullies who threaten their own affiliates and try to shake down bloggers over 5-word excerpts) threatened Fairey over claims the poster was based on an AP photo, and violated their copyright. Fairey and his supporters fought back. They argued the poster was permitted under the concept of fair use because the artwork was significantly changed from the reference photo. Additionally, they added, the poster was not based on the specific photo the AP claimed -- but on a different image that required more cropping and alteration, further supporting the fair use argument.

On Friday, that high-profile case took a turn nobody expected that I did not anticipate. Fairey confessed to having made false statements to a federal judge about exactly which AP photo he used. He also admitted having fabricated evidence. Snip from his statement:

The new filings state for the record that the AP is correct about which photo I used as a reference and that I was mistaken. While I initially believed that the photo I referenced was a different one, I discovered early on in the case that I was wrong. In an attempt to conceal my mistake I submitted false images and deleted other images. I sincerely apologize for my lapse in judgment and I take full responsibility for my actions which were mine alone. I am taking every step to correct the information and I regret I did not come forward sooner.

The attorneys representing Fairey will soon step down. Nobody knows what will happen in the case. The question of which photo was used was a minor, tangential issue before -- but Friday's revelation is not minor. As David Kravetz says in his account at Wired News, "Everybody agrees the case is now tainted and that Fairey's courthouse actions could undermine his case, even if he did not commit copyright infringement." But for those who believe in the merits of the original fair use argument, there is still hope.

Read Kravets' story (some interesting links between this case and that of the BitTorrent tracker TorrentSpy), and check out Marquette University professor Bruce Boyden's blog post here. Here's Shepard's mea culpa. Here's the AP's statement - and a note on that: I found it odd that many news organizations were sourcing that statement and a subsequent report from the AP as if they were regular wire service items, without regard for the fact that the AP is also a plaintiff in the case, and therefore inherently biased.

The Yes Men strike again. Posing as members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, they held a press conference today to announce that the chamber would abandon its opposition to climate-change legislation now in Congress. Well, that would explain the sneaky spam press release I received this morning which pointed to "chamber-of-commerce.us" instead of the actual website for the US Chamber of Commerce, at "uschamber.com." Wonder if any bloggers or reporters were done in by the emailed version of the Yes Men prank?

Here's a snip from Washington Post article about the meatspace hijinks today:

The event, complete with fake handouts on chamber letterhead, at least a couple of fake reporters, and a podium adorned with the chamber logo, broke up when a spokesman from the real chamber burst in. What followed was a spectacle not usually seen in the John Peter Zenger Room at the National Press Club: two men in business suits shouting at one another, each calling the other an impostor and demanding to see business cards.

"This guy is a fake! He's lying! This is a stunt that I've never seen before," said Eric Wohlschlegel, an official at the actual Chamber of Commerce, who said he'd heard about the hoax event from a reporter who'd mistakenly shown up at the chamber's headquarters.

The fake Chamber of Commerce official, who called himself "Hingo Sembra," did not give his real name to reporters, saying only that he represented a coalition of climate activists.

Pranksters stage Chamber of Commerce climate change event (Washington Post, via @tomzellerjr). Related coverage: GOOD, Roll Call, Talking Points Memo.

Huh, turns out the tinfoil-beanie crowd was right all along: the CIA *does* want to read your blog posts, follow your Twitter updates, and muck around in your Amazon book review history. Snip from Wired Danger Room exclusive:

In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. It's part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using "open source intelligence" -- information that's publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day.

Visible crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. (It doesn't touch closed social networks, like Facebook, at the moment.) Customers get customized, real-time feeds of what's being said on these sites, based on a series of keywords.

"That's kind of the basic step -- get in and monitor," says company senior vice president Blake Cahill.

Exclusive: U.S. Spies Buy Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets (Wired Danger Room, thanks Noah)

If you have any memory at all of Cold War-era editorial cartoons and rhetoric from the American perspective, this collection of Soviet posters from the same time period is both fascinating and mentally jarring. The English Russia Web site provides translations for most of the posters, but really, they're impressive in their ability to get everything across even if you can't read a word of Russian. One the most interesting things going on here, visually, is how easily the artists take the wacky, friendly stilt-walking clown Uncle Sam most Americans are familiar with and morph him into a figure more akin to evil Mr. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life" (frequently featuring anti-Semetic over and under-tones). They don't even change his outfit, just the colors.

Thanks to Twitter pal pbump for pointing me to the page!