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Domain: toad.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to toad.com.

Stories · 8

  1. First Hand Look At Chinese Internet Censorship

    Yro · Censorship · · posted by Zonk · from the very-little-first-person-shooting dept. · 398 comments
    Blanchek writes "Few Internet quotes have had a longer shelf life than John Gilmore's 'the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.' An Ottawa Citizen article from Professor Michael Geist notes that the maxim may be dead. The article reflects on a recent experience with Chinese Internet censorship and the blocking of news, email, and Google searches, while providing a caution that it would be mistake to think that the Internet in Canada, the U.S. and Europe will always remain as free as China's is censored."

  2. A Wi-Fi/VoIP Phone Booth In the Burning Man Desert

    Tech · Communications · · posted by timothy · from the burning-pots dept. · 214 comments
    Brad Templeton writes "I, (of EFF/ClariNet/rec.humor.funny) along with Brent Chapman (Majordomo/Building Internet Firewalls) and the satellite dish of John Gilmore (EFF/Cygnus/Cypherpunks/etc.) put together an engaging hack -- a battery-powered free phone booth using 802.11, VoIP and a satellite IP uplink. This was placed in the desert at the Burning Man arts festival deep in the remote Nevada Black Rock playa, exactly where you wouldn't expect a working phone booth to be. With cheap VoIP people were able to call all over the world. The reactions of people to such incongruous technology were great fun and emotional as well. There's a page about the phone including details of building it and live experiences including totally non-gratuitous photos of naked people using technology. (There, that ought to stress-test my new server!)"

  3. Your Right to Travel Anonymously: Not Dead Yet

    News · Court · · posted by CowboyNeal · from the need-to-know dept. · 1,353 comments
    ChiralSoftware writes "Remember John Gilmore's fight to be able to travel on commercial airlines without having to show ID? It has dropped out of the news for a while, but now it appears that the fight is continuing. I remember in the 80s we used to make jokes about Soviet citizens being asked "show me your papers" and needing internal passports to travel in their own country. Now we need internal passports to travel in our country. How did this happen? The requirement to show ID for flying on commercial passenger flights started in 1996, in response to the crash of TWA Flight 800. This crash was very likely caused by a mechanical failure. How showing ID to board a plane prevents mechanical failures is left as an exercise to the reader. How mandatory ID even prevents terrorist attacks is also not clear to me; all the 9/11 hijackers had valid government-issued ID. I hope the courts don't wimp out on this fight."

  4. Freedom of Speech in Software

    Yro · Patents · · posted by michael · from the if-only dept. · 250 comments
    akpoff writes " I've been struggling with the question 'what's wrong with software patents' but haven't been able to find the right words. I was over at John Gilmore's website and found a link to John Salin's 'Freedom of Speech in Software' letter to the USPTO back in 1991! This is one of the best explanations I've seen. He reminds us that computer programs are essentially like literature or music -- they are expressions of ideas. Just because they run on a computer doesn't make them uniquely different from other creative mediums. We should think player piano (patentable) vs the music (copyrightable but not patentable) it plays. Europeans -- put this letter into the hands of your MEPs!"

  5. Opportunistic Encryption of IP traffic: FreeS/WAN 2.0

    It · Encryption · · posted by michael · from the fight-the-man dept. · 153 comments
    Russ Nelson writes "Since 1996, John Gilmore has dreamed of an Internet where all traffic between cooperating sites is encrypted. He has supported the FreeS/WAN project which uses IPSEC to encrypt IP traffic on an opportunistic encrypting basis. The team has released Linux FreeS/WAN 2.00, their first release optimized for Opportunistic Encryption (OE). After installation, ZERO host configuration is required for OE! A Linux box running 2.00 will encrypt all IP packets to other OE capable boxes whenever possible, provided you publish a key and IPsec gateway information in DNS." Nice.

  6. Open Relays, Free Speech, and Virus Propagation

    Yro · Censorship · · posted by michael · from the now-boarding-at-port-25 dept. · 452 comments
    sirsnork writes: "There is a story about John Gilmore running an open relay that is being used by a virus to propagate running over at Newsbytes. His defence? He wants his friends to be able to send email through his server from whereever they are. You'd think he'd know better." Gilmore has been skirmishing with Verio for some time over his open mail relay. Is it a good thing because it promotes the free flow of information? Is it bad for promoting the free flow of spam? Do the ethics change because someone writes a virus that uses the server to propagate? Interesting questions.

  7. Bind, Safer DNS, and IPv6

    Internet · · posted by ryuzaki0 · from the coming-soon-(or-not) dept. · 89 comments
    resistant writes: "This article at Network World Fusion (seen at Linux Today) says, "In addition to DNSSEC, BIND 9 features support for IPv6, the ability to run on multiprocessor systems and improved scalability for handling large domain name zones." The urgent need (by Nike anyway, heh-heh) to forestall easy domain hijacking could be the sleeper issue that finally ushers in universal implementation of IPv6."

  8. 2nd Annual Free Software Foundation Awards

    News · News · · posted by Roblimo · from the live-from-new-york dept. · 140 comments
    Jacob Javits Convention Center, Manhattan,NY Tonight the Free Software Foundation gave out its Second Annual Award for the Advancement of Free Software. The nominees were introduced by our own CmdrTaco, fetchingly clad in a light blue plaid shirt. The awards themseleves were presentd by Richard M. Stallman, who wore a wonderfully fuzzy, warm-looking red, white, grey, and blue sweater. (More below)

    The awards were given out in conjunction with theBazar, a gathering of Open Source experts, boosters, and devotees featuring a number of tutorials on assorted Open Source and GNU/Linux-related topics.

    Last year's Award for the Advancement of Free Software went to PERL-meister Larry Wall. This year the three finalists were Donald Knuth, John Gilmore, and Miguel de Icaza.

    And the winner was (drum roll please) Miguel de Icaza!

    Miguel lent the proceedings a moment of extra drama by arriving - literally - at the second his name was announced, right after RMS said he was not there and could not, therefore, be expected to make a speech. But there he was, and the speech was both brief and charming.

    A surprise award was also given to Blockstackers, which has donated a significant amount of money to the Free Software Foundation. This award was accepted by a shocked - and literally blushing - Rob Malda.

    We join the Free Software Foundation in congratulating Miguel de Icaza.

    See pictures of the award ceromony and participants here.