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/. with "Fair and Balanced" reporting. Read the The Guardian for the Right and The New Zealand Herald for the Left. Read it at C|Net if you don't care.
Don't worry if you forget a secret Echelon knows it already.

As an expat NZer i like New Zealand Herald

SecurityFocus also has an interesting write-up;

"The new law against "Unlawful use of encryption" would establish prison terms for anyone who "knowingly and willfully uses encryption technology to conceal any incriminating communication".

Inter-jurisdictional searches would become allowed in case of "suspected financing of terrorist organizations, attacks on critical infrastructure, or computer crime."

There's a very good article in today's New Zealand Herald which provides a legal-professional's point of view.

The writer is a (former?) judge and part-time lecturer in law and IT at the University of Auckland.

Australia sets a lot of interesting precidents.

According to recent Australian court deciesions, the jursidiction is where content is read, not where it is published.

See Article Here
And Here


Furthermore, these are people known to be sharing content that is copyrighted. If I own a shopping center and I allow a store to rent space and distribute illegally copied materials, AND I am aware of it--then yes, I think I should do something.

I agree that there are many battles to fight against the MPAA and the RIAA, especially with the overly broad DMCA. But this isn't one of them.
And no, the way to fight them is not to distribute material illegally.

No, it's "Flying Machine"!

And with Air New Zeland falling to bits in the sky, it's barely that! =)

Oh yeah, the sleep part - knew I was forgetting something.

Recently, the maori.nz domain was created. It was created on the grounds that it was of cultural value for a clearly defined subculture of NZ, AIR.

However, there was something of a geek feeling that this wasn't very fair - it was a domain created on the basis of race and race alone.

In protest, and in a "if they can get it, why can't we" various people attempted to create the geek.nz domain. There is something of a race issue that we have to work through around here - thoughout the greater culture, stretching as far back as The Treaty of Waitangi

(Yes, there is something of an opening-the-floodgates problem, but there is a moritorim on new applications at the moment.)

(BTW, this isn't exactly news, as the idea was mooted, AIR, many months ago.)

Oh, and New Zealand Herald / NZPA Coverage

It's a cool thing, let us have our fun! :-)

Okay, I'm probably overplaying the race issue - it is something of a bugbear for me, however, that is the rationale behind.

Cell site call logs were used in a NZ murder trial, which helped convict a dude of murder. It's not quite the tracking being discussed (as a specific phone call was needed to show that he had been in a certain area)....

The story is here...

"The analysis showed that Lundy's 5.30 pm call from his wife and daughter, which went through the Petone cellphone transmitter, finished close to 5.38 pm. He made his next call at 8.29 pm. "

Briefly: German domain-name squatter snaps up "Shell.de." The German division of Royal Dutch/Shell negotiates to buy it in 1996, but won't pay the freight, and drops the matter. Couple years later Andreas Shell, owner of a publicity and translation business, buys the domain name (I'll bet the price had dropped a ton now that the oil giant had taken a pass), and set up his Web site.

Then Shell Oil tried to win in court what it lost in negotiations, and sued for the rights to the domain name. Astonishingly, the German high court ruled in the oil giant's favor. The judge's decision is full of flip-flops--on the one hand, he says everyone has the right to the domain name of his own name, whether for personal or business use--then he contradicts himself and says that such a right evaporates when you look at the relative sizes of the two. His ruling was based in part on what he conjectured the average user would expect when surfing to that site.

Why couldn't the judge have simply ordered Herr Shell to prominently display a link to Shell Oil on his Web site?

I'm not so conservative as to hold the "ownership is nine-tenths of the law" kind of views, but that, plus the fact that it was the guy's *name*, for heaven's sake, makes me think this was a really rotten decision. I'm sorry that I can't see a better or fairer way to award domain names than first-come-first-served, squatters be damned.

Weta, the graphics power house behind Peter Jackson, have recently purchased NZ Herald: "[476 systems] at 2.2GHz with four gigabytes of memory each. The 950 processors will be added to 350 existing 1GHz Pentium 3 systems as part of a dedicated "render wall" comprising 22 racks." These will be running Renderman software on RedHat. For all those army sceens in LOTR, Grunt (Guaranteed Rendering of Unlimited Numbers of Things) was used, an in house product by Jon Allitt.

This is the same Telecom who charged a man NZ$337.50 for being an arrogant bastard.

New Zealand man builds Brick boat.

"As Peter Lange's two-tonne brick boat was lowered into the water for its maiden voyage yesterday, it was hard to ignore the fact that it was April Fool's Day."

According to the NZ Herald, the surcharge was listed under products or services after James Storrie found out his mobile was disconnected and reported as stolen although that wasn't the case.

While the phone firm is investigating how someone managed to introduce the "arrogant bastard" category onto the bill, the paper also reports that local NZ law doesn't protect companies from describing their customers this way.

It might breach the defamation laws, however.

The New Zealand Herald's article on the whole warez crackdown is nothign short of awful.

It's a typical case of a clueless reporter trying to write an article on a technological issue they have no clue about.

For example:

US law enforcement officials said the raids targeted the "Warez" network, which breaks copy-protection schemes on everything from movies like Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to computer operating systems like Microsoft Windows XP.

and

The US Customs Service said the ring was responsible for 95 per cent of all pirated software available online, causing at least $US1 billion ($2.38 billion) in lost sales annually.

I guess now that there's no more warez, we'll have to rely on juarez for our pirated software?

The New Zealand Herald's article on the whole warez crackdown is nothign short of awful.

It's a typical case of a clueless reporter trying to write an article on a technological issue they have no clue about.

For example:

US law enforcement officials said the raids targeted the "Warez" network, which breaks copy-protection schemes on everything from movies like Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to computer operating systems like Microsoft Windows XP.

and

The US Customs Service said the ring was responsible for 95 per cent of all pirated software available online, causing at least $US1 billion ($2.38 billion) in lost sales annually.

I guess now that there's no more warez, we'll have to rely on juarez for our pirated software?

According to this article in the New Zealand Herald, J.R.R.Tolkien sold the rights to the movie for 10,000 pounds in 1968. The family retains the rights to printed material, so they will be profiting from increased book sales. J.R.R.Tolkien's son, Christopher, is opposed to the film project, but he has no say in the matter. It is sort of funny seeing Burger King ads featuring hobbits, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. They did the same thing with Hugo's dark novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame":
"Look Ma, I have a puppet of a deformed man with extreme curvature of the spine."

Feud Over Ring Movie

Here is another article from the New Zealand Herald about using Linux on Sgi 1200 machines for Lord of the Rings. Interestingly, the motivation for using Linux was cost and reliability. They rejected the latest high end stuff because they favoured uptime over having bleeding edge technology.

Here is another article from the New Zealand Herald about using Linux on Sgi 1200 machines for Lord of the Rings. Interestingly, the motivation for using Linux was cost and reliability. They rejected the latest high end stuff because they favoured uptime over having bleeding edge technology.

Don't forget the BBC, The Australian and Herald Sun, The New Zealand Herald, and every other English-language paper on the planet (for those of us who prefer to read English, that is). These papers often have more details than American papers, especially with regards to this whole terrorism thing. It's really useful to get an international perspective sometimes.

This article appeared recently in a local newspaper; same organisation as by all accounts. >The owner of a pornography web address is trying >to force the Government to buy the address for >almost $15,000

But recent military confrontations have taught Americans to expect conflicts primarily waged by machines -- wars without real sacrifice. This war began with dreadful, although geographically localized, civilian sacrifice.

as someone who routinely beats up on the media for not reporting a balanced story, especially in cases such as Columbine and Digital Rights, it is ironic to see another journalist trumpeting the great american war machine without any thought to why you are in this predicament. and the civilian casualties have only just begun.

and for what it is worth, Osama is absolutely correct when he says "America is full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that. Our nation has been tasting fear, hatred and injustices for years" and that "To the United States, I say, I swear by God the Great that the United States will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our land of Palestine".

But those greenish nighttime pictures are already pouring out of Kabul and Kandahar, along with the precision-bomb photos, and satellite shots of training camps and military outposts.

get a life you piece of shit.

But recent military confrontations have taught Americans to expect conflicts primarily waged by machines -- wars without real sacrifice. This war began with dreadful, although geographically localized, civilian sacrifice.

as someone who routinely beats up on the media for not reporting a balanced story, especially in cases such as Columbine and Digital Rights, it is ironic to see another journalist trumpeting the great american war machine without any thought to why you are in this predicament. and the civilian casualties have only just begun.

and for what it is worth, Osama is absolutely correct when he says "America is full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that. Our nation has been tasting fear, hatred and injustices for years" and that "To the United States, I say, I swear by God the Great that the United States will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our land of Palestine".

But those greenish nighttime pictures are already pouring out of Kabul and Kandahar, along with the precision-bomb photos, and satellite shots of training camps and military outposts.

get a life you piece of shit.

But recent military confrontations have taught Americans to expect conflicts primarily waged by machines -- wars without real sacrifice. This war began with dreadful, although geographically localized, civilian sacrifice.

as someone who routinely beats up on the media for not reporting a balanced story, especially in cases such as Columbine and Digital Rights, it is ironic to see another journalist trumpeting the great american war machine without any thought to why you are in this predicament. and the civilian casualties have only just begun.

and for what it is worth, Osama is absolutely correct when he says "America is full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that. Our nation has been tasting fear, hatred and injustices for years" and that "To the United States, I say, I swear by God the Great that the United States will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our land of Palestine".

But those greenish nighttime pictures are already pouring out of Kabul and Kandahar, along with the precision-bomb photos, and satellite shots of training camps and military outposts.

get a life you piece of shit.

But recent military confrontations have taught Americans to expect conflicts primarily waged by machines -- wars without real sacrifice. This war began with dreadful, although geographically localized, civilian sacrifice.

as someone who routinely beats up on the media for not reporting a balanced story, especially in cases such as Columbine and Digital Rights, it is ironic to see another journalist trumpeting the great american war machine without any thought to why you are in this predicament. and the civilian casualties have only just begun.

and for what it is worth, Osama is absolutely correct when he says "America is full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that. Our nation has been tasting fear, hatred and injustices for years" and that "To the United States, I say, I swear by God the Great that the United States will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our land of Palestine".

But those greenish nighttime pictures are already pouring out of Kabul and Kandahar, along with the precision-bomb photos, and satellite shots of training camps and military outposts.

get a life you piece of shit.

But recent military confrontations have taught Americans to expect conflicts primarily waged by machines -- wars without real sacrifice. This war began with dreadful, although geographically localized, civilian sacrifice.

as someone who routinely beats up on the media for not reporting a balanced story, especially in cases such as Columbine and Digital Rights, it is ironic to see another journalist trumpeting the great american war machine without any thought to why you are in this predicament. and the civilian casualties have only just begun.

and for what it is worth, Osama is absolutely correct when he says "America is full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that. Our nation has been tasting fear, hatred and injustices for years" and that "To the United States, I say, I swear by God the Great that the United States will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our land of Palestine".

But those greenish nighttime pictures are already pouring out of Kabul and Kandahar, along with the precision-bomb photos, and satellite shots of training camps and military outposts.

get a life you piece of shit.

Story Links:
BBC
MSNBC
CNN
Chicago Tribune
Globe and Mail
Washington Times
Sydney Morning Herald
New Zealand Herald
LA Times


Picture Links:
BBC
Sydney Morning Herald

The ISPs in question believed that they were not running open relays. The issue is not spam, but the possibility that ORBS is using its position of trust with the community to block legitimate e-mail because its manager (who owns his own competing ISP) has personal grievances with the ISPs.

In finding in favour of the ISPs, I would imagine that the court decided that ORBS failed to provide sufficient evidence that the ISPs were in fact running spam relays.

Lego aren't trademarking any of the words in the game (as the NZ Herald article tells). They have only trademarked "Bionicle", which is not Polynesian.

While I don't agree with the groups request that sales of the game be halted (it'd be a pretty good way of advertising maori culture I would have thought), I agree entirely with them wanting to know if Lego are going to trademark/patent the character names and or cultral concepts. The character names seem to be taken directly from the maori language so in my opinion, Lego has no right to them. This could just be a misunderstanding I guess :)

Here's a link to a NZHerald article that puts a different spin on the issue. While I'm at it, here's a BBC one as well. Another paper (the Dominion) had this and this to say.

I believe repeating lies eventually causes people to accept them as reality.

I have been told many many times the opinions my friends have of something I do. While they are wrong, I am beginning to accept it reality and I keep catching myself thinking along the same way that they've been telling me for the last few months.

It is dangerous.

Excuse me, I'm off to buy a New Zealand Herald and a 'Designed for Windows' cash register.

I'm less than 50 miles from Dallas, even closer to Plano and "Telecom Alley". I live in a small but not tiny town of almost 10,000 people.
Believe it or not, my only option is a 56K dialup.

Take a look at this article from a local paper regarding just how pathetic our telecomm's infrastructure really is.

here's a funny cartoon about the standoff

For more information go here. Basically, New Zealand makes a point of being nuclear free, but other countries don't respect that.

Now, if someone could let these people know, that'd be great-- I'm sure they'll be reassured no end!

Andrew

P.S. Let me nominate the whole global warming thing as the biggest display of wilful head-in-the-sandness in human history.

The article appears here.

There's been an example of this in New Zealand just in the past week. An indigenous fishing company, Moana Pacific, discovered the domain moanapacific.com had been registered by a competitor.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz /storydisplay.cfm?storyID=139411

They successfully had the domain overturned.

Wired has an article in the same vein as the CNN one:

http://www.wired.com/news/p olitics/0,1283,36899,00.html

Cheers,
Alastair

Nope. Wouldn't work.

` "You can't confine the energy. Once the explosion gets big enough, all of its energy goes into the atmosphere and not into the water. But one of the things we discovered was if you had a series of explosions in the same place, it's much more effective and can produce much bigger waves." '
- NZ Herald : Devastating tsunami bomb viable, say experts

I read this is Saturdays' paper, both the web articles are a bit of a hack job. If only I'd kept the paper. Had a few more details.

Nope. Wouldn't work.

` "You can't confine the energy. Once the explosion gets big enough, all of its energy goes into the atmosphere and not into the water. But one of the things we discovered was if you had a series of explosions in the same place, it's much more effective and can produce much bigger waves." '
- NZ Herald : Devastating tsunami bomb viable, say experts

I read this is Saturdays' paper, both the web articles are a bit of a hack job. If only I'd kept the paper. Had a few more details.