Slashdot Mirror

In the first few days after September 11, Lisa
Beamer could not sleep for more than an hour. Then she would
wake up and cry. She worried about the boys, David, 3, and Drew,
19 months, and the new baby due in January. David wanted to
know why, if their father loved them so much, he had gone to be
with Jesus. And there was that one nagging question. Why had her
husband, a man so attached to his cell phone that Lisa had to
confiscate it when they went on vacation, not called her from the
plane? Other passengers had called home from Flight 93 to say
goodbye and talk to their loved ones. Why not Todd?

In the first few days after September 11, Lisa
Beamer could not sleep for more than an hour. Then she would
wake up and cry. She worried about the boys, David, 3, and Drew,
19 months, and the new baby due in January. David wanted to
know why, if their father loved them so much, he had gone to be
with Jesus. And there was that one nagging question. Why had her
husband, a man so attached to his cell phone that Lisa had to
confiscate it when they went on vacation, not called her from the
plane? Other passengers had called home from Flight 93 to say
goodbye and talk to their loved ones. Why not Todd?

Political News from Wired News - Cybercrime Treaty Finally Ready. After four years of haggling over the language, several countries including the United States will sign a cybercrime treaty.

WildernessCoast.org - Cybercrime Treaty Bibliography -- By Date. A wide collection of links that talk about the Cybercrime Treaty Same info sorted by title.

Council of Europe - Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention on Cybercrime has been adopted by the Committee of Ministers during its 109th Session, on 8 November 2001 and will be opened for signature, in Budapest, on 23 November 2001.

The Convention will be the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, dealing particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security. It also contains a series of powers and procedures such as the search of computer networks and interception.

Its main objective, set out in the preamble, is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation.

The Convention is the product of four years of work by Council of Europe experts, but also by the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries which are not members of the organisation.

It will be supplemented by an additional protocol making any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda via computer networks a criminal offence.

[ ... ]

But Fred Eisner, a consultant for the Dutch government and private companies, said the draft made unfair demands on Internet service providers by asking them to track Web users' online movements.

"This draft convention lacks balance," Eisner told the assembly. "The convention explicitly gives much more power to law enforcement agencies and it has no system of checks and balances."

Bruce McConnell, president of McConnell International, a Washington-based consulting firm, said the treaty should be more forceful in protecting the privacy of Web users who are already worried about being spied on.

"There is concern that the powers of surveillance ... are not balanced by comparable protections for individuals' privacy," he said.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that-although officially democratic now-don't have a strong traditions of checks and balances on police power.

Do you want investigators rummaging around your clients' computer systems on warrants issued by former Soviet bloc nations?

That's the prospect that has pushed AT&T Corporation and other high-technology companies into feverishly trying to stop or at least soften the treaty. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Information Technology Association of America also oppose it.

Stewart Baker is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street cred on these issues in corporate America.

What worries Baker and his colleagues? Consider the following hypothetical: A Los Angeles screenwriter corresponds by e-mail with a neo-Nazi in Germany while researching a script. Shortly after, he finds federal agents examining the files on his home computer. The agents also visit America Online Inc. to retrieve records of the screenwriter's AOL usage.

The agents are fulfilling a warrant issued by German authorities allowing them to search for Nazi propaganda. Such material is unlawful in Germany but not in the U.S. They framed their warrant in terms of "suspected terrorist activity."

LAW.com (requires cookies) - International Treaty on Cybercrime Poses Burden on High-Tech Companies.

Maybe you're a civil libertarian, and maybe you're not. Maybe you worry about how the United States exercises its vast investigative and prosecutorial powers, and maybe you don't.

But if you counsel U.S. corporations on computer-related issues, you should be concerned about a new proposed treaty known as the "Convention on Cybercrime." The Council of Europe, a 43-nation public body created to promote democracy and the rule of law, is nominally drafting the treaty. Curiously, however, the primary architect is the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation are using a foreign forum to create an international law-enforcement regime that favors the interests of the feds over those of ordinary citizens and businesses. Their goal is to make it easier to get evidence from abroad and to extradite and prosecute foreign nationals for certain kinds of crimes.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also be handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that -- although officially democratic now -- don't have a strong tradition of checks and balances on police power.

[ ... ]

Stewart Baker, a partner at Washington, D.C.'s Steptoe & Johnson, is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty's opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street credentials on these issues in corporate America.

Slashdot | Implications Of The International Cybercrime Treaty.

SiliconValley.com part of San Jose Mercury News - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules.

MS-NBC - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules. PARIS, May 25 -- Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed Friday.

[ ... ]

Against EU objections, it also limits the right of a country to reject a request from abroad to store and hand over data in potential crime cases if the requesting country thinks it could be misused.

The text says states should make sure that systems operators or other people who know how to use a certain system can be ordered to cooperate in any such a cyberprobe.

PARIS (Reuters) - Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed on Friday.

The Council of Europe, a 43-state human rights watchdog, has amended the text to ensure police respect privacy rights when they follow digital trails to fight online crimes such as hacking, spreading viruses, using stolen credit card numbers or defrauding banks.

''The guarantees in the treaty have been reinforced,'' Peter Csonka, deputy head of the economic crime division at the Council's headquarters in Strasbourg, told Reuters after the Council posted the final text -- version 27 -- on its Web site.

But the treaty, which has aroused heated debate in cyberspace since its draft text became public last year, ignored calls by Internet service providers (ISPs) for fewer costly requirements on preserving data that could be linked to a crime.

It still accorded police wide powers to chase suspected cybercriminals -- powers some critics say go beyond what is legal in some Council member states or in observer countries like the United States, Canada and Japan due to sign the treaty.

ZDNet - Internet founder worried over EU cybercrime plans.

BRUSSELS --Vint Cerf, a founding father of today's Internet, said on Thursday that European Union plans for new rules to fight crime on the Web risked clashing with existing EU privacy regulations.

Cerf, who helped develop the Internet in the early 70s shortly after graduating from Stanford University and now works for WorldCom, said more secure network systems were an immediate priority for the successful development of the ubiquitous Web.

He told Reuters in an interview that Internet traffic should be retained only for billing purposes and was too cumbersome to be stored for police investigations.

Changes to a controversial treaty on cybercrime have done nothing to improve it, say civil liberty campaigners.

Next week, the Council of Europe will vote on the treaty, which has been redrafted 26 times before reaching its final version late in May.

The most recent changes were made to take into account the fears of civil liberty and privacy campaigners. But cyber-rights groups say the latest changes are purely cosmetic and have not diluted what they describe as its most pernicious sections.

The groups say that, if adopted in its current form, the treaty could lead to changes in legislation that would stifle rights to privacy and do little to curb the activities of law enforcement agencies.

[ ... ]

In December 2000, 23 organisations, banding together under the banner of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), signed a letter condemning the 25th draft of the treaty as "appalling", and warned that it handed law enforcement agencies sweeping powers to snoop and could seriously erode online privacy.

Now, three civil liberty groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International, have sent another letter to the Council of Europe outlining their "continuing concerns" over the wording of the treaty and saying that their fears have not been laid to rest.

The letter chastises the Council of Europe for refusing to open up the redrafting debates to non-governmental organisations and for, it says, ignoring the human rights and privacy concerns of organisations such as the GILC.

It goes on to say that the original criticisms still stand, and that the treaty does not pay enough attention to existing laws which safeguard human rights. It says the treaty's recommendations on protecting privacy are vague and do not go far enough.

IT industry gurus have branded the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime 'foolish, unworkable and a legal con trick'.

The controversial treaty provides a blanket legislation to deal with all forms of internet crime from hacking to online pornography.

Caspar Bowden, director of internet think-tank FIPR, said: "The Convention is essentially a legal con trick, drafted in secret by a handful of nameless bureaucrats. It equates the internet - a network of private networks - with 'cyberspace', a metaphor from science fiction.

"By this sleight of hand, the internet is defined as a public space over which law enforcement should be granted unfettered powers of surveillance and extradition," he added.

International policy-makers this week ended a round of talks aimed at setting common rules affecting online trade and commerce, but they made little progress in bridging divisions that threaten to delay the pact.

In the works for nearly a decade, the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments is still almost unknown outside international policy circles. Nevertheless, it could have broad implications for consumers and businesses by setting new rules for online copyrights, free speech and e-commerce--if it is approved.

Opposition to the treaty heated up Wednesday, when a two-week drafting session wrapped up with few concessions to critics, primarily from the United States, who say the pact threatens free speech and could force Internet service providers to become global content police.

"In a nutshell, it will strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every Web page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation and other speech offenses from virtually any country, (and) effectively strip Internet service providers of protections from litigation over the content they carry," Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), wrote in a report after the meeting.

The treaty is one of several efforts by the global community to grapple with a complicated legal issues on a borderless Web.

Four years ago, nations including the United States signed onto a World Intellectual Property Organization pact to protect copyright in the digital age. And several countries, including the United States, are hammering out the world's first cybercrime treaty, which would provide a standard for fighting online crime.

The Hague treaty differs from those efforts because it would not outline specific laws participants must follow. It's much broader, requiring participants to agree to enforce each others' laws on a variety of topics. As it stands, the treaty would require courts to enforce the commercial laws of the convention's 52 member nations, even if they prohibit actions that are legal under local laws.

BRUSSELS - The blueprint for a global code on Cyber-crime was agreed on in Strasbourg, France, Friday, paving the way for international rules governing online copyright infringement, online fraud, child pornography and hacking.

The 41 members of the Council of Europe (CoE), plus the U.S., Canada and Japan, signed on to a draft convention on cybercrime that is set to be rubber-stamped at ministerial level in September.

"Once adopted, the Convention will be the first international treaty on criminal offenses committed through the use of Internet and other computer networks," the Council of Europe said in a statement.

In September, the Council of Europe approved the Convention on cybercrime, a historic treatise that lays the foundation for legislation allowing for a greater sharing of information between countries to combat the rise of cybercrime.

The treatise isn't binding, but instead would have to be adopted into law by its 43 European member states and five outside countries including the United States, Canada and Japan.

The treaty is broad, covering crimes committed on the Internet such as fraud, child pornography and violations of computer network security. It also sets up global policing procedures for conducting computer searches, interception of e-mails, and extradition of criminal suspects.

More details on the CyberCrime Treaty can be found in the Privacy Digest archives dated September 26,2000, September 27,2000, October 09,2000, October 16,2000, October 18,2000, October 19,2000, October 25,2000, November 14,2000, November 20,2000, November 22,2000 and March 24,2001. This is not all the information at Privacy Digest and other sites so if you want to know more try a search

Political News from Wired News - Cybercrime Treaty Finally Ready. After four years of haggling over the language, several countries including the United States will sign a cybercrime treaty.

WildernessCoast.org - Cybercrime Treaty Bibliography -- By Date. A wide collection of links that talk about the Cybercrime Treaty Same info sorted by title.

Council of Europe - Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention on Cybercrime has been adopted by the Committee of Ministers during its 109th Session, on 8 November 2001 and will be opened for signature, in Budapest, on 23 November 2001.

The Convention will be the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, dealing particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security. It also contains a series of powers and procedures such as the search of computer networks and interception.

Its main objective, set out in the preamble, is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation.

The Convention is the product of four years of work by Council of Europe experts, but also by the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries which are not members of the organisation.

It will be supplemented by an additional protocol making any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda via computer networks a criminal offence.

[ ... ]

But Fred Eisner, a consultant for the Dutch government and private companies, said the draft made unfair demands on Internet service providers by asking them to track Web users' online movements.

"This draft convention lacks balance," Eisner told the assembly. "The convention explicitly gives much more power to law enforcement agencies and it has no system of checks and balances."

Bruce McConnell, president of McConnell International, a Washington-based consulting firm, said the treaty should be more forceful in protecting the privacy of Web users who are already worried about being spied on.

"There is concern that the powers of surveillance ... are not balanced by comparable protections for individuals' privacy," he said.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that-although officially democratic now-don't have a strong traditions of checks and balances on police power.

Do you want investigators rummaging around your clients' computer systems on warrants issued by former Soviet bloc nations?

That's the prospect that has pushed AT&T Corporation and other high-technology companies into feverishly trying to stop or at least soften the treaty. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Information Technology Association of America also oppose it.

Stewart Baker is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street cred on these issues in corporate America.

What worries Baker and his colleagues? Consider the following hypothetical: A Los Angeles screenwriter corresponds by e-mail with a neo-Nazi in Germany while researching a script. Shortly after, he finds federal agents examining the files on his home computer. The agents also visit America Online Inc. to retrieve records of the screenwriter's AOL usage.

The agents are fulfilling a warrant issued by German authorities allowing them to search for Nazi propaganda. Such material is unlawful in Germany but not in the U.S. They framed their warrant in terms of "suspected terrorist activity."

LAW.com (requires cookies) - International Treaty on Cybercrime Poses Burden on High-Tech Companies.

Maybe you're a civil libertarian, and maybe you're not. Maybe you worry about how the United States exercises its vast investigative and prosecutorial powers, and maybe you don't.

But if you counsel U.S. corporations on computer-related issues, you should be concerned about a new proposed treaty known as the "Convention on Cybercrime." The Council of Europe, a 43-nation public body created to promote democracy and the rule of law, is nominally drafting the treaty. Curiously, however, the primary architect is the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation are using a foreign forum to create an international law-enforcement regime that favors the interests of the feds over those of ordinary citizens and businesses. Their goal is to make it easier to get evidence from abroad and to extradite and prosecute foreign nationals for certain kinds of crimes.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also be handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that -- although officially democratic now -- don't have a strong tradition of checks and balances on police power.

[ ... ]

Stewart Baker, a partner at Washington, D.C.'s Steptoe & Johnson, is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty's opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street credentials on these issues in corporate America.

Slashdot | Implications Of The International Cybercrime Treaty.

SiliconValley.com part of San Jose Mercury News - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules.

MS-NBC - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules. PARIS, May 25 -- Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed Friday.

[ ... ]

Against EU objections, it also limits the right of a country to reject a request from abroad to store and hand over data in potential crime cases if the requesting country thinks it could be misused.

The text says states should make sure that systems operators or other people who know how to use a certain system can be ordered to cooperate in any such a cyberprobe.

PARIS (Reuters) - Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed on Friday.

The Council of Europe, a 43-state human rights watchdog, has amended the text to ensure police respect privacy rights when they follow digital trails to fight online crimes such as hacking, spreading viruses, using stolen credit card numbers or defrauding banks.

''The guarantees in the treaty have been reinforced,'' Peter Csonka, deputy head of the economic crime division at the Council's headquarters in Strasbourg, told Reuters after the Council posted the final text -- version 27 -- on its Web site.

But the treaty, which has aroused heated debate in cyberspace since its draft text became public last year, ignored calls by Internet service providers (ISPs) for fewer costly requirements on preserving data that could be linked to a crime.

It still accorded police wide powers to chase suspected cybercriminals -- powers some critics say go beyond what is legal in some Council member states or in observer countries like the United States, Canada and Japan due to sign the treaty.

ZDNet - Internet founder worried over EU cybercrime plans.

BRUSSELS --Vint Cerf, a founding father of today's Internet, said on Thursday that European Union plans for new rules to fight crime on the Web risked clashing with existing EU privacy regulations.

Cerf, who helped develop the Internet in the early 70s shortly after graduating from Stanford University and now works for WorldCom, said more secure network systems were an immediate priority for the successful development of the ubiquitous Web.

He told Reuters in an interview that Internet traffic should be retained only for billing purposes and was too cumbersome to be stored for police investigations.

Changes to a controversial treaty on cybercrime have done nothing to improve it, say civil liberty campaigners.

Next week, the Council of Europe will vote on the treaty, which has been redrafted 26 times before reaching its final version late in May.

The most recent changes were made to take into account the fears of civil liberty and privacy campaigners. But cyber-rights groups say the latest changes are purely cosmetic and have not diluted what they describe as its most pernicious sections.

The groups say that, if adopted in its current form, the treaty could lead to changes in legislation that would stifle rights to privacy and do little to curb the activities of law enforcement agencies.

[ ... ]

In December 2000, 23 organisations, banding together under the banner of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), signed a letter condemning the 25th draft of the treaty as "appalling", and warned that it handed law enforcement agencies sweeping powers to snoop and could seriously erode online privacy.

Now, three civil liberty groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International, have sent another letter to the Council of Europe outlining their "continuing concerns" over the wording of the treaty and saying that their fears have not been laid to rest.

The letter chastises the Council of Europe for refusing to open up the redrafting debates to non-governmental organisations and for, it says, ignoring the human rights and privacy concerns of organisations such as the GILC.

It goes on to say that the original criticisms still stand, and that the treaty does not pay enough attention to existing laws which safeguard human rights. It says the treaty's recommendations on protecting privacy are vague and do not go far enough.

IT industry gurus have branded the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime 'foolish, unworkable and a legal con trick'.

The controversial treaty provides a blanket legislation to deal with all forms of internet crime from hacking to online pornography.

Caspar Bowden, director of internet think-tank FIPR, said: "The Convention is essentially a legal con trick, drafted in secret by a handful of nameless bureaucrats. It equates the internet - a network of private networks - with 'cyberspace', a metaphor from science fiction.

"By this sleight of hand, the internet is defined as a public space over which law enforcement should be granted unfettered powers of surveillance and extradition," he added.

International policy-makers this week ended a round of talks aimed at setting common rules affecting online trade and commerce, but they made little progress in bridging divisions that threaten to delay the pact.

In the works for nearly a decade, the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments is still almost unknown outside international policy circles. Nevertheless, it could have broad implications for consumers and businesses by setting new rules for online copyrights, free speech and e-commerce--if it is approved.

Opposition to the treaty heated up Wednesday, when a two-week drafting session wrapped up with few concessions to critics, primarily from the United States, who say the pact threatens free speech and could force Internet service providers to become global content police.

"In a nutshell, it will strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every Web page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation and other speech offenses from virtually any country, (and) effectively strip Internet service providers of protections from litigation over the content they carry," Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), wrote in a report after the meeting.

The treaty is one of several efforts by the global community to grapple with a complicated legal issues on a borderless Web.

Four years ago, nations including the United States signed onto a World Intellectual Property Organization pact to protect copyright in the digital age. And several countries, including the United States, are hammering out the world's first cybercrime treaty, which would provide a standard for fighting online crime.

The Hague treaty differs from those efforts because it would not outline specific laws participants must follow. It's much broader, requiring participants to agree to enforce each others' laws on a variety of topics. As it stands, the treaty would require courts to enforce the commercial laws of the convention's 52 member nations, even if they prohibit actions that are legal under local laws.

BRUSSELS - The blueprint for a global code on Cyber-crime was agreed on in Strasbourg, France, Friday, paving the way for international rules governing online copyright infringement, online fraud, child pornography and hacking.

The 41 members of the Council of Europe (CoE), plus the U.S., Canada and Japan, signed on to a draft convention on cybercrime that is set to be rubber-stamped at ministerial level in September.

"Once adopted, the Convention will be the first international treaty on criminal offenses committed through the use of Internet and other computer networks," the Council of Europe said in a statement.

In September, the Council of Europe approved the Convention on cybercrime, a historic treatise that lays the foundation for legislation allowing for a greater sharing of information between countries to combat the rise of cybercrime.

The treatise isn't binding, but instead would have to be adopted into law by its 43 European member states and five outside countries including the United States, Canada and Japan.

The treaty is broad, covering crimes committed on the Internet such as fraud, child pornography and violations of computer network security. It also sets up global policing procedures for conducting computer searches, interception of e-mails, and extradition of criminal suspects.

More details on the CyberCrime Treaty can be found in the Privacy Digest archives dated September 26,2000, September 27,2000, October 09,2000, October 16,2000, October 18,2000, October 19,2000, October 25,2000, November 14,2000, November 20,2000, November 22,2000 and March 24,2001. This is not all the information at Privacy Digest and other sites so if you want to know more try a search

Nov. 20: Don't mess with RedHat Package Manager files

RedHat Package Manager (RPM) files are compiled and prepackaged programs which can be downloaded and installed on Linux systems. It is possible corrupt the data in an RPM file so code is executed on a Linux system when the RPM is queried for version information. This is a difficult thing to do since the memory location of the hacker shellcode would need to be known. However, It's possible so don't mess with RPM files from untrusted sources.

I'd suspect Taco is moonlighting over there if it weren't for the correct use of the apostrophe in "It's."

Adult entertainment site playboy.com was found hacked in it's server this weekend. Even if you haven't bought a membership, you may still want to check your credit card for unusual charges.

( Full Story )

oops, here's a working link:

ARTICLE

Probably has a lot to do with this:

Bush White House seizing authority.

So whats the deal? Katz is now a dupe of the man as well? Remember right after the 9/11 there was an email from muslim man circulating around the interenet? Yep.. Propaganda.

So while Katz is airing out his complete crap about *nothing* in particular, nothing but a heart warming tale spun to augment the beard shaving, women baring their faces, and the possiblility that MTV is coming to Kabul soon. Lets not forget the reality of the situation:

The Northern Alliance is a brutal regime as well. People welcomed the Taleban after being ruled by these losers.

On the homefront, the administration is taking power in sweeping gestures whose effects will leave us reeling for possibly fewgenerations.

Like the fancy stories you see above. People from the less fortunate countries in the world like Australia and Europe think our media is full of shit, and lying to us point blank.

But never fear, America is the home of the free. The best country in the world dude. And all that shit.

Anyway, just a reminder to use that search engine of yours and get the facts, see some other perspectives, especially now since Mr. Katz has obviously become a tool as well. Yeah maybe he was a tool before, but at least he had the power in his court to say something to Slashdot readers. I guess no more.

So whats the deal? Katz is now a dupe of the man as well? Remember right after the 9/11 there was an email from muslim man circulating around the interenet? Yep.. Propaganda.

So while Katz is airing out his complete crap about *nothing* in particular, nothing but a heart warming tale spun to augment the beard shaving, women baring their faces, and the possiblility that MTV is coming to Kabul soon. Lets not forget the reality of the situation:

The Northern Alliance is a brutal regime as well. People welcomed the Taleban after being ruled by these losers.

On the homefront, the administration is taking power in sweeping gestures whose effects will leave us reeling for possibly fewgenerations.

Like the fancy stories you see above. People from the less fortunate countries in the world like Australia and Europe think our media is full of shit, and lying to us point blank.

But never fear, America is the home of the free. The best country in the world dude. And all that shit.

Anyway, just a reminder to use that search engine of yours and get the facts, see some other perspectives, especially now since Mr. Katz has obviously become a tool as well. Yeah maybe he was a tool before, but at least he had the power in his court to say something to Slashdot readers. I guess no more.

So whats the deal? Katz is now a dupe of the man as well? Remember right after the 9/11 there was an email from muslim man circulating around the interenet? Yep.. Propaganda.

So while Katz is airing out his complete crap about *nothing* in particular, nothing but a heart warming tale spun to augment the beard shaving, women baring their faces, and the possiblility that MTV is coming to Kabul soon. Lets not forget the reality of the situation:

The Northern Alliance is a brutal regime as well. People welcomed the Taleban after being ruled by these losers.

On the homefront, the administration is taking power in sweeping gestures whose effects will leave us reeling for possibly fewgenerations.

Like the fancy stories you see above. People from the less fortunate countries in the world like Australia and Europe think our media is full of shit, and lying to us point blank.

But never fear, America is the home of the free. The best country in the world dude. And all that shit.

Anyway, just a reminder to use that search engine of yours and get the facts, see some other perspectives, especially now since Mr. Katz has obviously become a tool as well. Yeah maybe he was a tool before, but at least he had the power in his court to say something to Slashdot readers. I guess no more.

change too fast? the majority of the Afghan population just wants food! (or was the US dropping computers w/ modems instead of food in those crates?)

Afghanistan is among the world's poorest countries and has the lowest per-person food intake in the world

It all depends who you believe and what they count. The $100B was mention on CNN a while back. But I did find this link which gives a good cost comparision of this and other wars. A quote from the reference link:

"Because of its global scale and long-term nature, the war on terrorism probably will cost more than the Persian Gulf War, which totaled about $80 billion in constant fiscal-year 2002 dollars"

BTW, we are little quick to call someone stupid are we not. You should show a little restraint. I am sorry i accidently fat fingered the 1 and 2.

For the schoolboy story, try here

That would be Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., etc...

Read how Senator Orrin Hatch said supporting Bin Laden was "worth it".

here's a link to the msnbc coverage: http://www.msnbc.com/news/default.asp?cp1=1

CNN may be down but the Washington Post is up and has a photo.

Abcnews.go.com appears to be down.

MSNBC is up with coverage.

CNN may be down but the Washington Post is up and has a photo.

Abcnews.go.com appears to be down.

MSNBC is up with coverage.

http://www.msnbc.com/m/lv/default.asp?0cv=c642

Of all the reading I did on the terrorist attacks, there were only two articles that I thought did a genuinely good job. One of them was in Newsweek. I was surprised about this; the article, though, was written by a new editor, who seems to be good. So maybe Newsweek is changing.

(The other good article was, incredibly, a Slashdot comment.)

MSNBC has this article which is a pretty description of the origins of copyright in the US and how the system is currently completely out of whack.

Gates is still full of it. Open source/free software didn't start because of commodity PCs. Sure having them helps get more people involved, but to claim that MS is responsible for that is ridiculous. How many different CP/M machines were available at the time? That was the standard for business micros before their purchased 'quick & dirty OS' hit the scene. The only reason their crappy software took off was due to it being cheaper and having IBM associated with it. It's just like his different revisions about how MS found out about the internet. Given enough time, I'm sure he'll be talking how it was another MS innovation. A couple years ago, he was talking about how "we are at the beginning of the internet". Sounds like he's a decade or two off to me.

What I got from the story was that Bill's pissed that he can't legally lift GNU code, sell it, and then claim it was their 'innovation'. IMHO, the only standards that MS likes are those that lock in customers. He also misstate's the FSF's purpose. They don't want to eliminate programming as a profession. They want to give the user freedom. As a side effect, companies wouldn't be able to generate the obscene profits that MS enjoys, which is why Bill dislikes it. As crazy as he sounds at times, on the issue of copyrights and other related topics, I think RMS is probably more in like with Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers than Gates, Rosen, et al could ever hope to me. Which makes me think: if he were alive today, would Jefferson view Gates & company as good candidates for Liberty Tree refreshment?

A number of the detainees aren't being held on any sort of charge, but rather are being held as material witnesses. so much for innocent people and their rights...

What's even worse is that no one really knows how many people are still being detained in this manner.

MSNBC also has a story with more pictures as well as a video right over here. A pretty well written article (If not as in-dept as the stanford one) and the video interview is pretty interesting.

You can also try the following stories.
www.msnbc.com/news/652977.asp

money.cnn.com/2001/11/06/technology/microsoft/

www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,316946-412,00.sht ml

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,38145,00.html

www.nytimes.com/2001/11/06/business/06CND-SOFT.htm l (Reg Required)

canoe.ca/MoneyMicrosoft/nov6_msfttwothirds-ap.html

Fortunately, this issue has already been addressed. CmdrTaco has set up a special site that covers many social issues and current events, rather than those that're just "geek-compatible". The site format's substantially different, but it does do what you ask. The site is the Cmdrtaco News Network. Cowboy Neal has also set up a site with additional material: More Stuff -- laeN yoBwoC.

Here is the MSNBC post.

-jbn

not according to the article I read... its MAC ONLY

For the immediate future iPod is expected to be an Apple-only device. In its existing forms it is not compatible with PCs that run the Windows operating system.

However, WWII could have been avoided altogether without bloodshed if the US and European nations had been less selfish and vindictive decades earlier.

Well, you can "coulda shoulda woulda" any war in hindsite and see how to prevent it. It's worth pointing out that Germany brought it on itself by starting WW/I.

Something analogous is true now: WTC and the bombing of Afghanistan are the long-term consequences of massive failures of US foreign policy,

I agree with you that there are parallels between Germany back then and now. You can definitely make an argument that Germany got screwed in the years after WW/I which led to Hitler's rise.

However, there are also difference. You have to give the Middle East some responsibility for their own problems. I thought this series of Newsweek articles was an excellent discussion of the issues. The US has some responsibility for the current problems, but it's not true that it's solely our fault.

the US is already laying the groundwork for future wars and terrorism in their alliances with Pakistan and other undemocratic forces.

I somewhat agree with this, although not completely. Someone could have made the same statement about WW/II: "We shouldn't kill Nazis; that will just create more of them". It might or might not be true, but that's irrelevent: The aggresors set the rules. They have attacked our freedom and liberty, and I for one believe that freedom and liberty must be defended at all costs.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that we are not exactly aligning with believers of freedom. But let's face it. The middle east is at least 50-100 years away from being democracies. We can either align with "lesser evils", or we can withdraw completely. If we withdraw completely, we risk a Hitler type taking over the entire middle east, and then we really do have WW/III on our hands -- for real. The only thing that keeps that from happening is the good ol' USA.

It's a complicated situation, and there is no end of simple solutions that are dead wrong. There is no doubt the US has made some mistakes, but not as many as the US-haters would like everyone to believe.

No, it's definitely MSNBC [msnbc.com].

More here on CNN (Scroll down to "Reno case has Malaysia link"), BBC (Scroll down to Cheney's photo), and Msnbc.

Experts are poring over posters shown at pro-Bin-Laden protests, but so far no hidden tux has been spotted in any of them...

More here on CNN (Scroll down to "Reno case has Malaysia link"), BBC (Scroll down to Cheney's photo), and Msnbc.

Experts are poring over posters shown at pro-Bin-Laden protests, but so far no hidden tux has been spotted in any of them...

More here on CNN (Scroll down to "Reno case has Malaysia link"), BBC (Scroll down to Cheney's photo), and Msnbc.

Experts are poring over posters shown at pro-Bin-Laden protests, but so far no hidden tux has been spotted in any of them...

More here on CNN (Scroll down to "Reno case has Malaysia link"), BBC (Scroll down to Cheney's photo), and Msnbc.

Experts are poring over posters shown at pro-Bin-Laden protests, but so far no hidden tux has been spotted in any of them...

More here on CNN (Scroll down to "Reno case has Malaysia link"), BBC (Scroll down to Cheney's photo), and Msnbc.

Experts are poring over posters shown at pro-Bin-Laden protests, but so far no hidden tux has been spotted in any of them...

Here's another Hatch quote:

Indeed, to this day, those involved in the decision to give the Afghan rebels access to a fortune in covert funding and top-level combat weaponry continue to defend that move in the context of the Cold War. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee making those decisions, told my colleague Robert Windrem that he would make the same call again today even knowing what bin Laden would do subsequently. "It was worth it," he said. "Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union," he said.

From:
"Bin Laden comes home to roost"

After the first tower was hit I started talking to a co-worker on AIM (I was at home) and she said that something happened to our NY office (it was in one WTC) so I walked upstairs to my television, turned on NBC and watched LIVE as a plane hit the second tower and the anchor on TV said something to the effect of "holy shit, this is intentional."

The Internet cannot do that right now. No matter what webpage or steaming media site I goto I will see it 10 - 15 seconds or read about 3 minutes later... after my roommate (who watches TV all the time) would have screamed "OH MY GOD!"

Don't get me wrong, I get almost all of my news from the Internet but we still cannot beat the Live aspect of TV (I know there's a few sec. propagation delay and all but nowhere near as bad as the net.)

On a side note, washingtpost.com changed their website almost immediately and was up for a good part of the day. I was very pleased with their coverage and especially quickly using some type of hosting site as well. Yahoo! was very slow if it came up at all and I didn't even try msnbc.com.

The "best" part of the Internet for this tragedy was the searchable list of the missing. This is something that could definitely not be done via TV and would take up so much room in print media.

Yes, the British and Canadian contingient is recognized and appreciated. As is anyone else willing to send their money and their aircraft and their boys (and girls) to open a can of whoop-ass on all those who would destroy freedom in the world.

A cynic would note that the U.K. would likely not exist in its present form had it not been for its former colonies coming it its rescue about sixty years ago. Me, I'm not so certain, but I'm bloody sure that if it hadn't been for Tojo's insistience that Yamamoto awaken the sleeping giant, France would be speaking Russian these days... (not German; Hitler, like Napoleon before him, made the mistake of starting a land war in Asia after Easter... and the Red Army would not have stopped at the Rhine without Patton (and Monty!) there to keep them from it.)

So you Tories will excuse us Yanks a little tongue in cheek arrogance, no? After all, the RAF's next fighter aircraft will be built in either Marietta, Georgia, or (hopefully) right here in Seattle....

I will give the Brits credit, though. They have some of the best news services in the world.... unlike the crap we generate here in the States.... (I think it's funny that perhaps America's best news network is run by an Aussie... )

--
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
-- Mr. William Shakespeare, Henry V
(yes, of course we love you, John Bull, now quit being tetchy about it.)

I agree with you. It's a question of trust. I normally look at traditional news sources with grains of salt, but I trust very little information that I get on the net that isn't from the traditional news sources.

One thing that net has allowed is for the traditional news sources to be able to go even more in-depth than they do in their print pubs.

I really want to put in a plug for the link I have in my .sig. It's a Newsweek series of articles that are just really excellent as far as giving in-depth information about the Middle East. Why do they hate us?. Truly a great piece of well-researched journalism.

P.S. Someone told me they had trouble getting to the site. I suspect that certain Netscape versions may have problems. It's worth firing up IE to check it out.

The file was not found, even after searching on any extensions to the file name. The file does not exist or is read-protected.

Hmmm; weird. I tried it again, and it works for me. I tweaked the link a little; try it again. If that doesn't work, try going to www.newsweek.com, and then click on the big "why do they hate us" graphic. That should take you to the link that I posted, which is http://www.msnbc.com/news/nw-101501issue_front.asp .

Let me know what happens... I'm curious if you still have problems. I'd really like for people to read that Newsweek article. It's a great in-depth analysis of the cultural problems surrounding the Middle East.

You could also say that the US citizens are worried about penalysing one of the most successful US companies.

There was an article in Newsweek a just a couple weeks ago about this very topic. The same technolgy we use for peaceful means empowers terrorists, it says. http://www.msnbc.com/news/629630.asp

No, I can't find any link and I doubt he really said it.

Here is your link.

Snopes has a link to an MSNBC/Newsweek article that says that's what Dubya said.

Your analogy is one of the worst I have ever seen. There are more holes in it than I wish to address, but I will point out a few:

* A single person commiting an act of unprovoked violence is not comparable to a complex political situation that sometimes involves violence.

* The US is the puncher, not the receiver of the punch. Our cold war and oil interests cause us to meddle in the affairs of almost every country in the middle east. We aided Osama Bin Laden and put the Taliban into power. They used to be called "freedom fighters" in the past. Our sanctions in Iraq have caused the deaths of over 500,000 CHILDREN. We sponsored and trained terrorists in Nicaragua that resulted in over 30,000 civilian deaths. The list goes on. Now who is the aggressor here?

* A true pacifist is willing to die before hitting back. If someone thinks violence is evil, how can you combat evil with violence?

* And why would anyone take advice and learn lessons from an asshole who punches peaceful people in the face?

Turn your radio dial away from Rush Limbaugh and start finding out the true story, instead of knee-jerking off.

This IBM machine has what they call, a "server on a chip." It's got memory, processing, and I/O on the same piece of silicon. That means it can process the information a lot faster than comparable sun processors. Check out this article comparing them for more information about why IBM sees this as a competitor to the Starcat, and why you just can't go by the number of processors.

I highly agree... hijackings will never be looked at again as an event where if you cooperate you will be ok. I can safely say that the majority of people would beat the living hell out of any moron who decided to jump up with a weapon (be it knife or uzi) and scream out that they are hijacking the plane.

In many ways, this is exactly why we are wrong in our focuse of "locking up the stable after the horse is gone". Identical hijackings could occur next week with pre-9/11 security in place and none of those planes would reach their target. Why? Because the "fight or flight" instinct would immediately kick over to "fight". On the other hand, no one is watching out for some maniac in a SUV loaded with fertilizer who decides to create his own road through the middle of the local shopping mall.

All of the planes except one had five hijackers. The reason is that most likely we already had in custody the fifth - a man detained on immigration charges because he was a suspected terrorist and was suspiciously learning to fly a commercial jet & asking about flying over NY airspace but had no interest in taking off or landing.

The guy was arrested on immigration charges rather than put under surveilance. The FBI field office asked but was refused a counterintelligence surveilance warrent because a suspected terrorist learning to fly a plane and particularly interested in New York City airspace was not enough for "probable cause"

Story Here

To be fair, if they had just searched his hard drive they probably wouldn't have had enough to know what the terrorists were up to. On the other hand if he had remained free but under surveillance it seems likely we would have been able to gather enough intelligence on this cell to figure it out before hand.

See this article:

Copyrights and Copywrongs -- why Thomas Jefferson would have Loved Napster

It's an excellent review on MSNBC.com by copyright historian Siva Vaidhyanathan. He's One of the Good Guys.

Jefferson worried that the Constitution's vague time limit on copyrights would limit access to published works, creating information monopolies as existed under the original British copyright laws. He only reluctantly went along with allowing copyrights at all, and he wished they had set a firm time limit. And he stated clearly that ideas could not be property: once you have expressed an idea publicly, he said, it's out there for everybody.

They've had this on MSNBC for awhile. If you click on the news categories on the lefT nav bar instead of mousing over and choosing a story, you get a big ad blocking your screen, and you have t go up to the top nav to actually get to that category. There's no free lunch anywhere. I guess if I didn't want to be annoyed, I could just read a book.