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In this situation, a reasonable person might balk at the idea that the machines save the images, and that individuals besides the presumably professional security guards may easily have access to those images (like the ones that leaked 35,000 such images from a scanner in Florida. You can't tell me that there aren't likely to be smaller, quieter leaks of these images going on that we won't ever hear about before they start showing up as fetish material on some NSFW website.

And there's a reason for that. Check out the "buxom younger woman" in this video:

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/11/16/the-inevitable-taiwa.html

There are those who say the terrorists have already won.

Had to watch this at least 3 times to catch the whole thing...was laughing so hard that these rent-a-cops think they're keeping the terrorists away from flying. The saddest part of the video was the "private" scanning room...since I can see this happening.

Try more like 1 in TEN MILLION, the 1 in 500,000 statistic you quote comes from a misquoted infographic, which points out 1 in five hundred thousand is the odds of being struck by lightning in the continental united states. Somehow people are repeating 1 in 500k? Refer to: http://boingboing.net/2009/12/30/odds-of-being-a-terr.html It's a eye-opener.

Internationally it's even less likely, consider international airlines like Qantas who have never had a airborne single fatality let alone a terror attack.

I'm starting to wonder ...

And there's a reason for that. Check out the "buxom younger woman" in this video:

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/11/16/the-inevitable-taiwa.html

There are those who say the terrorists have already won.

Wrong. They chose to respond to piracy with DRM. It has been showed repeatedly that even in the time of internet file sharing, DRM-free content sells better than their counterparts.

"The stupid response to X caused Y" does not mean "X caused Y"

While not in a can, how about live crab?
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/21/live-crab-vending-ma.html

I think Macbook Pro users are well aware of the extreme temperatures their computer reaches. http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/02/02/penny-arcade-flames.html

30 months for DDOS attacks is unreasonable in comparison to less than 2 years with good behavior for shooting a handcuffed man in the back and killing him.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/11/05/bart-cop-mehserle-ge.html

I should know better than to do your googling for you.
Boing Boing link.

but a security researcher had his daughter kidnapped for a number of years for looking into the wrong "cyber" criminals. She was only recently returned to him, after a number of years, having been through much badness.

I believe that the story you are referring to is this one which was mentioned in the book Fatal System Error by Joseph Menn.

There's a "one click" joke in here, waiting to be told.

The "Soviet Russia" is a throwaway - of course! I do like the general resonance with the notion that the Kindle, in a very real and significant way DOES read "you".

The tracking/advertising/selling model of Amazon is a borderline-insidious intrusion into privacy. The data is collected, presumably forever, and when combined with some interpretations of the Federal wiretapping laws, may someday stand as witness against you.

There is a very real connection between Kindle and a nascent version of the 1984 Telescreen. Of course, this is true of the web-browser, itself.

I leave you with Jacques Vallees:

You may think of yourself as a user of Google, Facebook or Amazon, but you are actually their product.

Sure, Google will provide you with search results, but they are not in the search business; they are in the advertising business. Their profits come from marketing firms that buy your behavior.

Similarly, Amazon is not in the book business, although they will send you the books you've ordered. They are in the personal information business.

The assets of modern web-based companies are the intimate profiles of those who "use" them, like you and me. Time to forget the nice pronouncements like "Do no evil" that accompany the wholesale destruction of privacy now taking place on the web, or rather within the walled gardens that companies like Facebook, Google and Apple are erecting around us on the web. Compared to them, the Chinese censors re-inventing their Great Wall are a bunch of sissies.

Well, the starvation is shocking to those of us with an iota of compassion.

Also, some of the ridiculous follies of the government are just plain funny.

Example A: the worlds ugliest permanently unfinished hotel.

Example B: To save on electricity, traffic is directed by police, evidently only women and they only turn counterclockwise. I guess because dear leader only likes it when girls turn counterclockwise.

If you can get it to work with the site, great, they'd be happy for you. The problem comes in with the studios, who demand that Netflix use DRM when a user streams a video on their site.

Except when a 'studio' demands that their videos be streamed without DRM netflix is not happy to cooperate either. Not even to go so far as to include a pre-roll to the movie telling viewers where they can get a Free copy.

Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi alliance and refers to any of the technologies specified in the IEEE 802.11 standard. Wireless HDMI is not 802.11.

It's been well established that Wi-Fi is not short for wireless fidelity. It's not a technical term, it's a marketing term used to describe a specific set of technologies.

1) CD's, FDDs, etc., only became popular after they were developed by a group. The development group itself does not constitute popularity, and I'm not even sure Sony gets credit for putting these groups together. (e.g. Philips was already working on the CD independently of Sony) IMHO when Sony has exclusive licensing control it gets too greedy, but also the "standards" its promoting are corrupted as per (2) below, so other companies are rightfully wary.

2) The divisions fighting each other basically means they shoot each other in the foot and produce worse products. There are not two electronics divisions who compete on quality. Instead, as a classic example, consider how the music division forced the electronics division to apply DRM that ruined the digital walkmans. And in return, the CD rootkit fiasco was thanks to the application of their technical expertise to the music business...

A consortium of like-minded companies strives to produce a standard that is optimized for a task at hand. Sony's "consortium" only strives to protect its special interests, which at best have nothing to do with, or even work against, the task at hand.

Is there a mirror of it? It doesn't have to be on YouTube either. :P

Hmm, this video story reminded me of Boing Boing's mention of a two parts YouTube video story (about 18.5 minutes in total; #1 (here, here, or here) and #2 (here or here) showing "60 Minutes" on video piracy from 1978.

Here's one example:
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/15/apple-blocks-pulitze.html

Apple's explanation was that the content "ridicules public figures". Yes, I know that this guy's app was allowed after he won his Pulitzer, but what about all of the apps that aren't backed by Pulitzers?

People's phones and tablets are becoming the medium through which they experience the world, so this sort of censorship does matter.

I'm in Canada, and if I'm roaming, I fully expect to be brutally RAPED by my telco.

When down in the U.S. recently, I turned my radio off, and I really, really hope that my phone didn't apply some kind of undocumented feature to try to access some wireless data while I was out. If so, I'm screwed.

It's not just Canada either. A friend in Germany had a GPS on his new smartphone. He used the GPS to get his current location, figuring it would cost a few bucks, but it was cool. He didn't know that the app went into the background.... At the end of the month, his bill was 6000 Euro... at the time, that's about $10k USD. They're forcing him to pay the bill. He's on social assistance.

These stories are not uncommon. A coworker had a bill for $4500 on an "Unlimited voice/Unlimited data" plan. Turns out that he didn't have the "Unlimited voice/Unlimited Data/Unlimited Tethering" plan. Another story was in the newspaper recently for a fellow who thought he'd look a couple things up on the net while he was overseas. What could it cost? $100 at the most? Who cares? oh no... the bill was in the thousands.

Just search Google:

http://www.ktvu.com/news/21927813/detail.html $21k

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20003930-71.html $18k

http://boingboing.net/2007/07/31/att-iphone-intl-roam.html $3k

From that last one, it looks like I need to get the "unlimited/unlimited/unlimited/unlimited" plan if I wanted to check a web page while overseas. And here I thought the "unlimited/unlimited/unlimited" plan would be okay. Can't they just have a "please don't rape me?" plan?

They're thieves. I only have the plan because of work, and my bill and the contracts really make me very uncomfortable. What would have happened if my phone accidentally tunred on its radio and synced the email when I was in the U.S.? $10k mistake?

I saw this story covered at BoingBoing earlier and I have to say -- has anyone actually read this article?

Welcome, friend. You must be new around here. Let me tell you how things work here.

You see, there's no real requirement for submitters to read or understand the articles they link to. That makes it very common for us to get submissions where the submitter says something like "The article says X. The article says X!" when the fact the article says "not X". I wish it was better around here, but it's not.

I saw this story covered at BoingBoing earlier and I have to say -- has anyone actually read this article?

This is not a major victory. This is a temporary set-back for the record labels who wish for overreaching legal powers to stop the unstoppable.

Here are some very meaningful excerpts from the same story covered by the Irish Times:

"...the judge said laws were not in place in Ireland to enforce disconnections over illegal downloads... this gap in legislation meant Ireland was not complying with European law."

"The judge made it very clear that an injunction would be morally justified but that the Irish legislature had failed in its obligation to confer on the courts the right to grant such injunctions, unlike other EU states."

"Irish Recorded Music Association director-general Dick Doyle said his office would pressure the Government to reform the law in favour of record labels."

RTFA

Here's an illegal checkpoint based on that law. here (warning: pdf) is a whole slew of them. This article tells of one specific victim. So does this one. Here's a dragnet for you folks in the UK. This case is the one where they stretched it to include all mail sent anywhere in America. But wait! There's more!

linky
linky
linky

While not specific to the case of searches inside borders based on these laws you may find this link enlightening, it's what our congresscritters are reading about these things.

Warrentless stops and searches inside our borders are being done and it needs to stop.

sorry to piss on the fanbois flames spouting "iPhones walled garden is much safer" and other such uninformed crap
the iPhone App Stores dirty secret is its worse, much worse

http://www.slashgear.com/iphone-spyware-debated-as-app-library-phones-home-1752491/

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/04/13/pinch-media-statisti.html

> You buy it - you own it. That's how it used to be.

May I introduce you to the first commercial recordings

http://boingboing.net/2009/01/13/thomas-edisons-crapp.html

Because so many of them lack empathy http://www.boingboing.net/2010/09/15/we-yawn-because-we-c.html

"One study, done in 2007, even found that psychology students--who presumably spend a lot more time than average thinking about other people's mental states--were more susceptible to contagious yawning than engineering students."

Does it mean that he'll no longer be the 2010 winter olympics mascot?

http://boingboing.net/2010/02/06/pedobear-official-ma.html

Oh, I think it's useful... but in regards to 2) I've only seen pedobear pop up in forums posted by third parties to indicate that interactions between other people are getting that kind of creepy. So in that respect, if you see a lot of pedobears being posted, someone on the channel is acting creepy (not necessarily the guy who is posting the pedobear).

Also, more awareness of memes could at least help avoid situations like this: http://boingboing.net/2010/02/06/pedobear-official-ma.html

No story such as this would be complete without pointing out that the Minister of Science and Technology is a creationist.

To the Conservatives, "science" means "whatever we say". No wonder they want to control what actual pesky scientists say.

What good is having GPU acceleration that only works on one platform? The -entire- point of the trend of doing things in-browser is to make cross-platform compatibility a reality. If I wanted a game to work just on Windows, why wouldn't I just make an application that did that?

How is this at all insightful? What makes HTML+Javascript 'cross-platform' is that there exist (nearly) standards-compliant applications to render that content on (nearly) every platform. I write a browser-based application, it works on Firefox, Safari, Chrome and IE. If I did it right, it work in every future browser that implements those standards.

There is nothing in this that at all makes me give half a **** about whether IE computes some image processing thing in the GPU or the CPU. I don't care if Firefox hires a team of Oompa-Loompas to work out where CSS elements go or if Safari implements their javascript using a Dwarf Fortress. The concept of a cross-platform web standards says absolutely positively nothing about how each particular platform should accomplish the goal and is concerned only with the result.

When I write 'document.images[0].style.height = "800"' that means only 'resize this image to 800 pixels high'. If IE wants to implement them in the GPU, I see no reason to stop them. Image resizing will work exactly the same way in IE (maybe faster) and will work exactly the same as it always did in Firefox.

Nothing has been added or subtracted from any other platform.

While Jobs can certainly say whatever he wants, Wired reported about the iPad in 1999.

It's certainly easier than, you know, actually acknowledging and dealing with their ideas...

What ideas? You mean ideas like somehow thinking that Patrick Henry was a supporter of the US Constitution http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/09/patrick_henry_and_the_tea_part_1.php. Or maybe you mean Glenn Beck's pseudoscientific ideas about how the Smithsonian is involved in a massive conspiracy to cover up 19th century archaelogical facts?http://anthroslug.blogspot.com/2010/08/glenn-becks-pseudo-archaeology-part-1.html. Or maybe you mean the idea that Obama is going to put Republicans into concentration camps http://boingboing.net/2009/03/17/foxs-glenn-beck-says.html? You know, what? I'm sick of the notion that there is anything resembling worthwhile ideas coming from this man. At a certain point, it is a waste of time to actually respond to this paranoid nonsense in any other way than ridicule. And to the people who believe him or listen to him? Fuck 'em. Fuck every one of them for being too lazy or too stupid or too tribalistic to exercise their brains at all.

Now, if you just we're talking about the saner end of the Tea Partiers then there might be some argument that they have actual ideas, mainly resembling the form "I like government policies that make life better for me but not for other people." Do I need to address what's wrong with that also or are we done?

Did anyone notice the Eldar model they were using in the second image? I wonder if Games Workshop know about this? Even though its free advertising, their IP watchdogs will will probably litigate this into nonexistence.

Yeah, ever since I read the story I wondered how this guy replaces the battery in his wireless bionic eye.

RFID is wireless AND it has no batteries.

Yeah, ever since I read the story I wondered how this guy replaces the battery in his wireless bionic eye.

Going OT here. This came up on BB last night with english translations of swedish news reports. This was a quote from one of the women who went to the police:

Anklagelserna mot Assange är förstås inte iscensatta av varken Pentagon eller någon annan. Ansvaret för det som hänt mig och den andra tjejen ligger hos en man med skev kvinnosyn och problem att ta ett nej.

Which means:

The accusations against Assange are not staged by either the Pentagon or anybody else. The responsibility for what has happened to me and the other woman lies with a man with a distorted view of women and a problem with the word "no".

I am leaning towards the view that Assange needs to learn that he is not James Bond, and he doesn't have a license to do what ever he wants.

The article Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either) by Cory Doctorow is a good read.

Steve Jobs is deliberately destroying the web and trying to remold it as he sees fit. He would rather that content creators only build native iOS apps that work only for iDevices rather than use already-existing channels & platforms that work perfectly fine.

His war on interpreted code/runtimes and (WORA) Write-Once-Run-Anywhere is a big headache for content creators everywhere.

Apple's image will certainly survive a scandal resulting from the actual implementation of something in the vein of the patent application. I mean, spying on the possessor of hardware you provide because you're somehow suspicious of them has worked out well in the past.

And they're tracking the GPS location of the 'suspicious user'? What, do they plan to send the police at them as soon as they detect jail breaking? Apple really wants to open this legal can of worms?

correction: The music industry LOVES child pornography.

"Child pornography is great," the speaker at the podium declared enthusiastically. "It is great because politicians understand child pornography. By playing that card, we can get them to act, and start blocking sites. And once they have done that, we can get them to start blocking file sharing sites".

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/28/music-industry-spoke.html

If there is a more gullible group of people than audiophiles, I haven't met them.

How about buying coffee beans that are eaten by rodents (actually a civit) and pooped out. "The most expensive coffee beans can cost up to $600 a pound"

The information on the card contains the plain text card number (the same one which can be used to perform online purchases): http://tv.boingboing.net/2008/03/19/how-to-hack-an-rfide.html

You're right, if a merchant account gets lots and lots of fraudulent charges against it, it's going to get shut down pretty quick. But they can steal that information and submit it to valid terminals for nefarious purposes.

Reminds me of the infamous $500 'ethernet' audio cable from Denon

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/06/22/amazon-reader-review.html

"Toxoplasma gondii,"hijacks the sexual reward pathway" in rats' minds. "

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/04/how-cat-poo-parasite.html

It also has unspecified effects on humans (current theory is neurotic behavior-- which could affect entire civilizations and cultures).

Skip to 6:45 to hear about MagicJack:

http://boingboing.net/2010/04/04/npr-on-slapp-lawsuit.html

I saw an article on Boing Boing about a month ago telling about this guy being sent to the moon in 2013 with Armadillo Aerospace providing the lander. I was surprised I never saw anything on /. covering the clip.

http://boingboing.net/2010/07/08/nasa-robonauts-on-mo.html

You're right, but the parent was talking about allergies, peanuts, etc not celiac disease :)

still: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/04/westerners-gut-micro.html

I think you may have misunderstood my question - I know what is illegal (or at least the relevant laws) and why it is (we have reactionary politicians with media- rather than logic-driven policies) illegal - I want to know why it should be illegal.

It's not the viewing of the material, per se, that should be illegal, but the creation of the material.

And I agree with this - in most cases. But that doesn't explain why possession (in some cases, even accidentally) should be illegal.

I also agree that there are consent issues with children; although it is for society to decide. Obviously when someone turns 18 they don't magically become capable of giving consent (after all, in the UK one can get married at 16... but not publish nude photos until 18... how does that make sense?) so like all age-based laws, it is completely arbitrary.

It isn't just a consent issue, though, it is an informed consent thing. The most obvious example of this is with EULAs, where people will consent to handing over their souls - the problem isn't that they weren't old enough to consent but that they weren't informed.

Moving on from consent - it isn't illegal to take pictures of children. It isn't even illegal to take nude pictures (in most places). It is usually considered appropriate (although decreasingly) for parents to take baby photos - or even young-child photos. Going back to the marriage thing, in the UK it is fine to possess pornographic pictures of someone aged 16 or 17 provided you are married to or in a long-term relationship with them - so really this whole area of law is a bit confused and messed up.

The next question is "what harm does it do?" - and this is a tricky one - partly because taboos make it very hard to do unbiased scientific research on the issue. Now, I want to make one thing very clear I am fully against any sort of abuse of children (or anyone else, for that matter). No compromises there. But how exactly does possessing a picture (or drawing) count as abuse?

This is where the change in definition comes in: In some circles some child porn is now being referred to as "child abuse images" to make the distinction between "images of children being abused, or who were abused to obtain them" and "images (including drawings) of children taken innocently but being used in a sexual context". The trouble is that it can be hard to tell these apart some time.

It is also worth remembering that some images of naked children are perfectly acceptable - particularly in art (a classic example being this - although it is worth noting that apparently female equivalents have caused issues) - so what if someone takes such art and uses it for sexual purposes, is that ok? Do we have to ban all art involving nudity of anyone who might be under 18?

Now, those are just some thoughts that I felt like throwing out there - but I hope it makes it clear that this issue is very complicated and not thought through by most people, including politicians. Unfortunately, (as you pointed out) it is very hard to fight against it without being demonised because "think of the children" is a very powerful motivator. I'm not saying we should legalise all child porn or CAIs, but I am saying that we shouldn't pretend that the issue has been properly thought through and is anything other than a reactionary impulse.

One last thought;

distribution is generally held, it seems, to encourage this material

It always amuses me when the anti-piracy lobby, when campaigning for Internet filters to block access to copyrighted material, hold up the success of the filters already being used to block child porn. According to them, the distribution of their content (for free) discourages the production of material, but in the case of child porn the distribution (potentially for free) enc

"consumers" whatever the fuck they are. [...] Maybe some sort of cow?

Close. A favorite passage of mine from William Gibson (by way of boingboing):

[...] a "consumer," what William Gibson memorably described as "something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth... no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote."

The difference is that the more you spend on a car, surround system or PC, in general, the better product you get.

can I interest you in a real wooden volume knob for your stereo that will add richness to its sound?

Because everything is bad if there is the theoretical possibility that it could potentially be abused?

In this case, yes. And it doesn't always need Photoshop to cause havok. This kind of thing has been done before 1 2. The difference here is that the person is the one to make the photo from any angle instead of the single angle that the speed camera takes. You can make a faked violation and then send the photo to the website and they get the fines. And I can easily see people doing to people they don't like (others have done worse). In the end, if something can be potentially abused you have to take that into consideration and try to implement safeguards against it. Otherwise if you don't, someone will be more then happen to abuse it and others will join when they see just how easy and non-traceable it can be.

For those curious, here is the article about that. 2

What about pictures of drivers using their cellphones to take pictures of drivers using their cellphones to get first post on Slashdot?

You are allowed to use hands free phones while driving.
You are also allowed to use hands free cameras. http://gadgets.boingboing.net/handsfree.jpg