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The real crime is child molestation. Paedophilia (without child molestation) is essentially a thought-crime. In the USA, the opinion of the majority of law makers and judges seems to be that fantasy pictures (paintings, drawings, computer 'art' etc) of child porn are equivalent to and just as bad as real photographs of someone actually being abused. The attitude in most other countries is probably the same. Possession of an image of a child in any kind of sexual or erotic pose is illegal, the origin of the picture is irrelevant.

I vaguely remember something about a person in California (I think) who was convicted on peadophilia charges for the sole reason of having a private diary (that was accidentally read by someone else) containing fantasy stories involving paedophilia. But I can't find a link to it, and I'm not really keen on doing too many more google searches with 'child pornography' or 'paedophilia' in it - for obvious but unfortunate reasons.

In the USA, the CPPA was overturned, but not because the judges were uneasy about the idea of 'virtual crime', but the law as drafted was too broad and might cover things that were not, in fact, virtual child porn.

"The aim of ensuring the enforceability of our nation's child pornography laws is a compelling one," Rehnquist wrote in a dissenting opinion joined by Scalia. "The CPPA is targeted to this aim by extending the definition of child pornography to reach computer-generated images that are virtually indistinguishable from real children engaged in sexually explicit conduct."

Are there any psycologists reading Slashot? I would be interested in their opinion on this quote:

"This decision has set back years of work on behalf of the most innocent Americans," said Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. "Whether in movies or photographs, it doesn't make a difference whether or not the person engaged in sex is actually a child. If it looks like a child and is said to be a child, pedophiles have found their fix -- and their search for true child pornography will only be enhanced."

Is this actually true? If you do some substitutions s/person/animal/; s/child/horse/; s/pedophiles/hippophiles/ (I got that last definition from here :-), then that paragraph sounds simply ridiculous. But what then is it about virtual paedophilia that makes it fundamentally different from any other sexual fetish - or even heterosexuality? Maybe there is a difference, and all paedophiles genuinely are dangerous and likely to molest someone at the drop of a hat. But it is not obvious to me why it should be so and I want to see some serious research before our laws are structured around this apparent dogma.

From this AP article at the Washington Post:

Verizon, which has fought the RIAA over the subpoenas with continued legal appeals, said it received at least 150 subpoenas during the last two weeks. There were no subpoenas on file sent to AOL Time Warner Inc., the nation's largest Internet provider and also parent company of Warner Music Group. Earthlink Inc., another of the largest Internet providers, said it has received three new subpoenas.

So, I'm wondering if users of RoadRunner, owned by Time Warner Cable, are somehow being granted a "pardon" as well by our associates at the RIAA for using TW's services.

All those $200 donations? Why don't you ask the Bush campaign whose "Pioneer" id number was written on the check. Which CEOs coerced all those company VPs to make those donations so that they could enjoy face time and continued access to unimportant little things like Cheney's "Energy Policy Committee" (featuring Ken Lay), or Rumsfeld's "Foreign Policy Advisory Board" (featuring Richard Perle and Newt Gingrich).

Check out this WaPo article Name Those Fundraisers for more details.

--MarkGo

Let's see... 8% interest on Microsoft's $49 billion in cash works out to be $430,000 per hour. And that's just interest on savings. Take into account $2 billion/quarter profits, and that's another $913,000/hour. They could afford to give away $1000 every 3 seconds and still be profitable!

Why run a contest at all? Just buy every non-MSN instant messager user (78 million people) for $11 cash/month... and still be profitable!

The Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign has posted their donor list for the most recent quarter on the web. It not only includes the names of contributors but also the size of their donations. Interestingly, a large majority of the contributors to the Bush campaign contributed less than $200.

And this seems like a good idea to you? Can think of a way to violate a person's privacy that's much worse? Why not just have a big sign over the voting booth that lights up to show which candidate they voted for? It's crap like that making me proud to be a Democrat.

The Democrats also have the whole problem of Chinese-Americans and foreign companies funneling millions from the Chinese government into Bill Clinton's re-election campaign in 1996 (during the same time period Chinese received favored trade status and managed to pilfer nuclear used-to-be-secrets).

That's better than the Republican Attorneys General calling corporations and trade groups subject to lawsuits or regulations by their state governments to solicit hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions for the GOP.

In sum, your statement could easily be:
You want to talk to any elected official? It's easy -- just raise $100,000 for his/her re-election campaign and you'll get 10 minutes of face time! No problem.

Clinton isn't the one that killed president@whitehouse.gov. Bush is.

let's ban driving and nursing.

just because some people use p2p networks illegally, doesn't mean everyone does.

... courtesy of the rejected post machine. The government sector news sites are always good - and usually better - for details about contracts of this sort:

Microsoft/Dell Gets $90-$120 Million Homeland Security Contract

Microsoft has been awarded the five-year, $90 million Department of Homeland Security contract for desktop and server software. The contract will be managed by Dell and will provide the DHS with 140,000 desktops running Windows XP and Microsoft Office Professional. When consolidated with current agreements, the contract amounts to a six-year agreement covering 144,000 desktops, worth between $110 million and $120 million. This follows the $478 million, six-year deal with the Army announced last month. More at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Washington Post, InformationWeek, the Register , eWEEK, and Reuters.

OK, NASA still looks screwed up.

Possibilities we must consider:

• Space travel is really beyond us.
• Space travel is beyond current day NASA. Given current management problems, that is looking increasingly likely. The Washington Post now has a special section on the Columbia disaster.

What should we (the United States in particular and humanity in general) be doing?

• One thing is support the X Prize. This will provide alternative experience and data to the NASA monopoly. The more attempts we make, the better. The greater the variety, the better.
• Since NASA is a U.S. government creation, U.S. citizens should write their Congressional representatives, citing articles such as this one by Jeff Bell and the Washington Post section linked to above. It's time for some light and heat to be shed on this agency.
• Look for investment opportunities if you have the money.

On one hand, our government wants to track all movement.

On the other, they're terrified of a dissertation that uses simple data mining to reveal infrastructure weakness.

So . . . they're going to build a massive system, rely on it, and thus give people a nice jucy target to screw up. Knowing the government, it won't work anyway, or if it somehow works it'll be misused, making it only more laughable.

Besides, imagine what happens when someone Bluescreens national security . . .

Since Bush and his crew both advocated AND stand behind their decisions to do the perfectly legal things they do I see no comparison to what we were talking about.

Again, good luck with your research. I have no desire to join your childish arguement (sic). -Gmontag

Yeah right..."Perfectly legal" like repeatedly ignoring a federal court order to turn over the Energy Task Force documents.

You think a lame ad-hominem attack will substitute for your utter lack of substance or a valid argument. How utterly typical...you can't make a point, so call your opponent's position "childish". So much for dialogue.

I'll bet you consider the State of the Union lie about uranium from Africa"case closed" too, right? Childish argument? Just in case you missed the connection again. Don't bother to reply Guy. Case closed. I have no desire to suffer fools like you.

Silly File THIEVES and PIRATES use of P2P to commit robbery increases

Traffic on the Morpheus service also fell 15 percent, Net Ratings said, while usage on iMesh dropped 16 percent. BearShare usage dropped enough that it fell below NetRatings' cutoff point for tracking.

Check out the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A735 9-2003Jul3.html?nav=hptoc_tn

Seems to me filesharing is increasing

Some more details about AOL Journals from:

1. An AOL employee involved in the Journals project.
2. San Francisco Examiner columnist Jeff Jarvis who was invited to an exclusive preview (five high profile bloggers were invited)
3. Thoughts on AOL Journals from Internet consultant and professor Clay Shirky, one of the five invited

Blogs: AOL Journals Coming This Fall

AOL has discovered blogs. AOL Journals (so named because AOLers were confused by the term ''blog'') will make its debut this fall. The new service will let subscribers use AOL Instant Messenger to post to their blogs/journals with RSS/XML. AOL by Phone users will be able to leave voice mail that will be posted to their blogs as MP3s. More thoughts on the AOL Journals beta from Clay Shirky and Shelley "burningbird" Powers

Well, the CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in a speech the President gave in October. So why did it appear again in January, despite what the CIA had already told the administration?

I really prefer a president lying about a blowjob he has got, then muddeling the issue of Iraq and the war on terror. But then I have the moral of a liberal...

An interesting article about Dean's use of the Internet.

CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in October
Why Bush Cited It In January Is Unclear

By Walter Pincus and Mike Allen
Sunday, July 13, 2003; Page A01

CIA Director George J. Tenet successfully intervened with White House officials to have a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger removed from a presidential speech last October, three months before a less specific reference to the same intelligence appeared in the State of the Union address, according to senior administration officials.

Tenet argued personally to White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that the allegation should not be used because it came from only a single source, according to one senior official. Another senior official with knowledge of the intelligence said the CIA had doubts about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegation, which months later turned out to be forged.

The new disclosure suggests how eager the White House was in January to make Iraq's nuclear program a part of its case against Saddam Hussein even in the face of earlier objections by its own CIA director. It also appears to raise questions about the administration's explanation of how the faulty allegations were included in the State of the Union speech.

It is unclear why Tenet failed to intervene in January to prevent the questionable intelligence from appearing in the president's address to Congress when Tenet had intervened three months earlier in a much less symbolic speech. That failure may underlie his action Friday in taking responsibility for not stepping in again to question the reference. "I am responsible for the approval process in my agency," he said in Friday's statement.

As Bush left Africa yesterday to return to Washington from a five-day trip overshadowed by the intelligence blunder, he was asked whether he considered the matter over. "I do," he replied. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters yesterday that "the president has moved on. And I think, frankly, much of the country has moved on, as well."

But it is clear from the new disclosure about Tenet's intervention last October that the controversy continues to boil, and as new facts emerge a different picture is being presented than the administration has given to date.

Details about the alleged attempt by Iraq to buy as much as 500 tons of uranium oxide were contained in a national intelligence estimate (NIE) that was concluded in late September 2002. It was that same reference that the White House wanted to use in Bush's Oct. 7 speech that Tenet blocked, the sources said. That same intelligence report was the basis for the 16-word sentence about Iraq attempting to buy uranium in Africa that was contained in the January State of the Union address that has drawn recent attention.

Administration sources said White House officials, particularly those in the office of Vice President Cheney, insisted on including Hussein's quest for a nuclear weapon as a prominent part of their public case for war in Iraq. Cheney had made the potential threat of Hussein having a nuclear weapon a central theme of his August 2002 speeches that began the public buildup toward war with Baghdad.

In the Oct. 7 Cincinnati speech, the president for the first time outlined in detail the threat Hussein posed to the United States on the eve of a congressional vote authorizing war. Bush talked in part about "evidence" indicating that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. The president listed Hussein's "numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists," satellite photographs showing former nuclear facilities were being rebuilt, and Iraq's attempts to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes for use in enriching uranium for nuclear weapons.

There was, however, no mention of Niger or even attempts to purchase uranium from other African countries, wh

Here is why I think Howard Dean can be elected:

1. He's swinging to the left in the primary to enegize the base. His anti-war, (almost) univeral health care, anti tax cuts for the rich, and pro civil unions stance will ensure that the liberal Democrats and some Greens will throw their support behind them.

2. Then, for the general he'll move to the center (much the way Bush did in 2000) by saying emphasizing (1) his position on the budget (he's a deficit hawk), (2) his position on education: special ed. is a huge unfunded mandate and the so-called, yet underfunded, "No Child Behind" takes rights away from municipalities, and (3) his states' right approach to gun control will help him in winnable western states (New Mexico, Colorado, and maybe Montana).

3. The way the economy is going, it might be *the* issue in the election, helping any Democrat.

4. National security: maybe not Dean's strong suit, but he can emphasize his first responder credentials (as both a physician and a Governor), blast Bush for not fully funding homeland security, and maybe even attack him on the Iraq decision (new poll show public support quickly eroding).

5. Meanwhile, Republicans are "misunderestimating" Dean's ability to do the above four, thus catching them off-guard and winning the "low expectations" game in the media.

6. I'll stop there even though the list goes on (use of Internet, perceived as straight-shooter, etc.)

Anyway, it's *way* too far out to say that someone can't be elected. So much happens in so little time in politics.

this is it

Don't know if this is the same chair person or not, but her term under Clinton expired in 2001, and she refused to leave.

I think the mechanism here isn't the oversimplified, neo-Freudian "competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and gain the attention of women." That would imply that only men lose their creative edge when their priorities shift.

A broader look at the subject would show a parallel with a more modern topic: anti-depression medications. There are plenty of examples of highly creative people -- geniuses in their fields -- whose creativity would likely have been quashed if they'd had access to a good Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitor. Poet Emily Dickinson and artist Vincent Van Gogh come to mind, but I'm sure there are many others.

The problem, as I see it, isn't that having a family takes something away from a would-be genius... any more than an appropriate dosage of Prozac does. What both do, ideally, is give the person a sense of contentment, a feeling that things are the way they should be.

Creativity, in the end, often requires adversity to bring it out. Remove the adversity, and the creativity (or "genius") may seem to be extinguished. But as the examples in this discussion show -- Bach, Hawking, et al -- it is possible to achieve both genius and happiness. It just doesn't happen very often.

Who knows. But it's exactly this sort of naming convention that will seriously embarrass the US sooner or later. Imagine a vessel named after a President who later turns out to have stolen millions, or the sort of fuss that'll be kicked up when one's sent to a country that the CinC it's named after had attacked several years earlier?

Probably no embarrassments anymore. One of the first things GWB did when he took office was to delay the release of Reagan's presidential records. He eventually moved to essentially permanently seal anything that might eventually reveal inappropriate behavior by the Reagan and GWH Bush administrations.

Will progress with the impeachment of George W. Bush et al..

The decline and fall of the Cheney-Rumsfeld regime has begun.

Cheers,
W00t

Seriously, is there really a need for something like this to happen? At the risk of frowning on something that some guy did "just because he could", does anyone actually use these computers anymore? I deal with alot of users, and the OLDEST machine ive seen in years still being used as an internet capable machine is a 486/66DX. Those are few and far between. Im all for hobbys, (i recently spend a week learning how to program atari games) but is this really front page material? Arent there more pressing issues at hand ?

Favorite quote from the article: "Not many of us know what to do with 1,000 20-terabyte drives--yet, that is what we have to design for in the next five to ten years."

Heh. I do, so get designing. The various law firms reviewing documents from cases like Enron (criminal , bankruptcy, and civil procedings), Microsoft's antitrust suit, the SCO v. IBM, etc. etc. need that space to store all the materials from their case work. Lots of paper from all those places get turned into electronic images managed by very large custom databases.

Guess how many Group IV tiffs and pdfs some of these become. Answer: millions. In five or ten years, cases such as these will likely consist of collections of data that large. Terabytes of data for cases such as these are not uncommon now. Enron could get this big by itself by then. It's well on its way to becomming one of the largest cases of all time. Check this out. Whoa.

So you have to ask yourself, what kind of organization do you want to be a part of?

The kind with jobs.

From here:

A botched carjacking early Sunday morning led to the arrests of the three, who prosecutors said planned to kill three local middle school students and then turn their weapons on random victims.

I don't think the issue is really that they played too much violent video games -- I think the point could be made that (thank god) they didn't play quite enough GTA3.

This article talks about a group of small webcasters is threating to sue the RIAA for antitrust violations. They feel the royalty agreement favors only big webcasters and is being used as a stick to drive out the smaller ones.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the recipient who doesn't get it.

A quick check on Spacetoday.com points to several good articles ...

SpaceFlightNow article
Florida Today article and it has three video's of the test
Orlando Sentinel article
Washington Post article
Houston Chronicle article

Also in the post today is an article on one persons response to total information awareness: Government information awarness.

A better Post article this morning.

It doesn't look cool. Seriously.

Here's the story on the washington post. Parallels between the critical infrastructure question and computer security professionals. There's a certain point where information should be kept quiet.

"UK Parliament Clears Govt of Misleading on Iraq" - Reuters/Washington Post.

"Campbell cleared by MPs over Iraq dossier" - Daily Telegraph.

"Dossier report clears Campbell" - The Guardian.

"Iraq weapons claims criticised" - BBC headline.

File Swappers to RIAA: Download This!

they renamed it when some members of congress asked if spying on citisens might create a few problems. so, the name was changed to terrorist information awareness, and all was dandy again

story about it

Federal and state authorities reported Thursday that Microsoft Corp. was abiding by many of the conditions it had agreed to last year in its landmark settlement with antitrust enforcers, though they remained concerned about how much the software giant was charging to let competitors use its technology.

Microsoft Corp. is taking too long to alter how much it charges competitors for technology that is necessary for their products to work with the software giant's systems, the Justice Department told a federal judge yesterday.

In a written report card on how well Microsoft is complying with its 2001 antitrust deal with state and federal prosecutors, Justice Department lawyers said they might need the court to force Microsoft to act more quickly. In other areas of the settlement, department lawyers praised Microsoft's compliance.

Microsoft, in response to prodding from the Justice Department, has made a series of changes intended to make it easier and less expensive for industry competitors and partners to license technical information from the company.

But despite the easing of some licensing restrictions, the government and several states said in a court filing yesterday that they remain concerned by certain Microsoft practices and planned to address those concerns in a scheduled conference with a federal judge on July 24.

Federal and state authorities reported Thursday that Microsoft Corp. was abiding by many of the conditions it had agreed to last year in its landmark settlement with antitrust enforcers, though they remained concerned about how much the software giant was charging to let competitors use its technology.

Microsoft Corp. is taking too long to alter how much it charges competitors for technology that is necessary for their products to work with the software giant's systems, the Justice Department told a federal judge yesterday.

In a written report card on how well Microsoft is complying with its 2001 antitrust deal with state and federal prosecutors, Justice Department lawyers said they might need the court to force Microsoft to act more quickly. In other areas of the settlement, department lawyers praised Microsoft's compliance.

Microsoft, in response to prodding from the Justice Department, has made a series of changes intended to make it easier and less expensive for industry competitors and partners to license technical information from the company.

But despite the easing of some licensing restrictions, the government and several states said in a court filing yesterday that they remain concerned by certain Microsoft practices and planned to address those concerns in a scheduled conference with a federal judge on July 24.

As undercover assignments go, posing as a teenage girl online to catch pedophiles has its share of challenges for the typical FBI agent. Should he ever capitalize words in instant messages? Is it okay to say you buy your clothes at 5-7-9? And what about Justin Timberlake? Is he still hot or is he so two years ago?

[snip]

Most of their classmates did not know about their FBI work until yesterday, when Bald commended them on their achievements. Thanks to the girls, Bald said, the FBI has gathered such valuable information as: never begin a chat with "hello"; never use proper grammar in instant messages; and "pos" stands for "parent over shoulder."

Government Warns of Mass Hacker Attacks

Washington Post article "Protecting Its Proprietary Pork"

Among newspapers, #2 behind USA Today is the Wall Street Journal, only about 10% lower. And #3 is the NY Times.

You think WSJ readers are intelligent? Haven't you seen the Monty Python skits?
"I'm a chartered accountant and my name is... Well, I can't remember my name right now, but I am a chartered accountant."

Granted, he probably read the Financial Times instead but six of one...
And how about that WSJ editorial page. Absolute, total, utter, lying bullshit. It takes an idiot to believe that stuff. NYT ain't much better (Judith Miller, anybody?)
And as if trying to prove the guy's point, how about this sentence in the USA Today article,
"We're actually providing even lower pricing now for education then[sic] we ever have..."
I expect that kind of writing on Slashdot, but this is supposedly a journalist writing this article.

When I think of "TV Brick" it's usually in a different context. (replace hammer with brick) Generally after watching yet another Laci Peterson segment on CNN.

After Columbia was destroyed, Charles Krauthammer wrote an opinion piece saying that we should keep sending humans into space, but that they should not brave the most risky parts of spaceflight (launch and entry) for such meager results.

I happen to think that he underestimates the risks of the "next million miles" beyond Low Earth Orbit, but I essentially agree with his point. We do need to send humans into space, but the results must be worth the risks.

For me, the results that would be worth the risks would be the creation of a spacefaring society. The early days of aviation were extremely dangerous, but 100 years after the first successful controlled flight, aviation is commonplace. The risks borne by the pioneers of aviation made a difference.

The problem is, I don't see that NASA is on a road to make human spaceflight commonplace. But if we ever do make human spaceflight commonplace, it will be a great achievement that will really change human history.

The astronauts of Apollo 8 took that famous photo of Earth rising above the surface of the Moon. They brought back a glimpse of what others may one day see for themselves.

An article in the Washington Post talks about a possible electronic "fig leaf" over sensitive areas. Well, now terrorists know exactly where to put their weapons.

hmm, funny. From the reviews I have read, that sounds pretty much like the plot. Perhaps some emperical data needs to be collected...

IMarv

What do you consider low income? People who make 30k or under, if they have any kids, pay *no* income tax. At least 40% of people in this country pay no income tax. If you believe that payroll taxes should be cut, fine...I'm with you.

In a demand deposit driven economy, income levels (as a hard number) are irrelevant. What matters is purchasing power and cost of living, which are regional and inflation dependent. So, for example, in current dollars $30K/yr in Cincinnati might actually be a good income. In Boston (where I live) it's a pittance. You can't even afford a decent apartment with that level of income, never mind a house and children. However, taxes are levied without regard to regional cost of living. In fact, as I pointed out previously, the payroll tax burden is incurred entirely by those making under $86K/yr; those earning above that level pay nothing above the first $86K/yr.

Why don't you ask yourself these three questions, and if you think I'm factually wrong please feel free to dispute:

1. Is tax money levied strictly for social services being siphoned off for general revenues? [Factual answer: YES.
2. Do income, investment, and estate taxes cover the burden of non-social services government services? [Factual answer: NO].
3. Who disproportionately received the greatest benefit from Bush's income, investment (capital gains), and estate tax cuts? [factual answer: those with investment incomes outside of their 401Ks, those who earn over $300K/yr, those who have large estates to pass to their children]. That is simply a FACT.

Now, finally, ask yourself one last question:

• Do you expect to receive Social Security in your lifetime?

Did you answer NO? So did I. And here's a step in that direction. Salon has another good article on the subject of bankrupting Social Security by defunding general revenues. This represents a transfer of vast sums of wealth from the Social Security Trust Fund to the General Account, and as such represents REAL "Class Warfare" given how the Social Security Trust Fund is financed. Do not claim liberal bias in these print publications, instead refute the FACTS as presented. Can you?

Never mind the demographic change leading to the claims of fewer and fewer working to pay for more and more seniors, since that's a red herring. Think about it, what do you think will be the result of the huge immigrant wave currently engulfing America? Will these immigrants not pay into the social security trust fund in years hence? Social Security is NOT in danger of going bankrupt, it is general revenues which have been in deficit for over forty years and that is what's bankrupting America. You're paying a tax that is only levied against $86K/yr, while those who earn more pay nothing above this, and all that wealth is being transferred to the General Account to pay for general services while our congressional representatives dream up ways to destroy the primary benefits those taxes were created to fund.

That would be "The Rich" who don't pay this tax.

Does that even come close

Apparantly the FTC has hired AT&T to run the call center that takes all the national do not call list phone calls. Talk about the fox gaurding the henhouse, are they going to ask if i want to swtich from MCI when I call to ask my number be removed from the list? (Hint: the answer is no, I dont want to switch)

Danny.

Well, that would work, except for McCain in his infinite wisdom has BANNED political ads when people are mostly likely to care.

CFR

Another provision, aimed at curbing thinly veiled attack ads by outside groups, would ban corporations, unions and advocacy groups from targeting candidates by name in "issue ads" within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary.