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Defense Department 'eDNA' Plan Withdrawn
An anonymous reader points out this report on News.com from Declan McCullagh of a far-reaching plan (now withdrawn) to curtail much online privacy through the use of biometric markers, excerpting "The idea involved creating secure areas of the Internet that could be accessed only if a user had such a marker, called eDNA, according to a report in Friday's New York Times." Perhaps they'll withdraw the plan to track everything you buy next. Update: 11/24 17:38 GMT by T : Here is the original New York Times report from John Markoff.
What? You mean Gattaca didn't drive everyone away from this idea already?
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
I recently joined the ACLU and am now a card carrying member. Strange coming from a middle-class republican backgroun. I am 29 now, and feel that at least a contrary response is needed, so that we don't go off the deep end. I don't agree with everything they say, but at least they are there speaking up and deserve some of my hard earned money.
I also a couple days ago became a card carrying member of EFF which is probablly more palletable to us technologists. I would encourage everyone to at least look at their website. Too often it is easy for us to click and read, instead of taking action. At 29 I have started writing my first letters to my congressman. He is a republican, who doesn't share my views, but still he needs to know as his constituate, that I don't like his voting style. Sure, it is one small drop in the ocean, but enough drops will create a flood.
Whether all the changes going on upset you, or if you like them all, we should all stand up and let our voice be heard. Too many of us, including myself, sit on the sidelines. I was at a concert for Counting Crows recently and Adam the lead singer said "The reason the country is run by a bunch of old people is because us young people don't stand up for our selves."
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
Correct me if I'm wrong (always a dangerous thing to say, I know) -- but don't we already have numerous records about us that we're not "allowed" to see? Would this not be yet another, much more comprehensive "protected document"? And if we don't get to read it, we can't clear up any misunderstandings. It all becomes allegation. That's a very dangerous recipe.
I used to think that the gradual shift to an all-credit society would have its benefits (harder to rob your local convenience store of e-dollars... though, wait, it's coming). As time goes on, however, I'm starting to think that there may be benefit, even salvation, in being able to slip through the cracks. Just because I trust my present elected reps (or think them too stupid to do too much harm) doesn't mean the next set is going to be more brilliant, more misguided, and more dangerous than ever. Policies end up staying in place even though the faces running them change. Let's be damn careful what we set in motion.
As long as the supreme court upholds this judgement, we have some small hope.
Brevity is the soul of wit
-- Polonius
Does anyone ever think back to our roots, and realize that maybe it's time for another American Revolution?
I don't think so. We would have been much better off if we could have ended slavery without having its proponents stir up a rebellion. War is not a good thing.
It's quite possible the current political parties are very disappointing and they do not follow the will of the voters but the will of those with money. We are stuck with a bipartisian mediocrity and cannot easily elect third parties to office due to flaws in the U.S. democratic process. For example, representatives and senators are elected as all or nothing-- if 20% of the population votes for a particular independant party, there is no guarantee that any person of that party is elected. In some European countries, the equivalent of representatives are elected by percentage-- in this case 20% of the representatives will be from the independant party. Likewise, voters for the presidential elections have only one choice, whereas in other democratic countries, voters choose the candidates in the order of preference. This prevents the whole Greens vs. Democrats problem that plagued the previous presidential election, in which Green voters (who'd rather have a Democratic president than a Republican even though voting Green may tip the scales and cause a Republican to win office). Not to mention presidents aren't even chosen by popular vote...
Remember the second amendment! Don't let the government disarm the people.
They may look back and say that, but only if the freedom of information side wins. If the other side wins who knows if the DMCA will even be remembered - maybe it'll be completely written out of history so that consumers think that the way things are is the way things have always been!
More and more when I see these weird technological applications, and things that are totally feasable if enough money is put behind them, I start thinking that these religious nuts are less and less nutty. Maybe I don't agree with their direct motives, but their resistance and defence of certain things against forces of central control are generally noble. (Just don't try and convert me...)
As i'm sure many of you have noticed, there's a whole lot of nutty stuff out there on the intarweb... You want a conspiracy? Someone's already thought it out for you, probably. I'm talking about stuff like The Cutting Edge or other 'new world order' sources, UFOs, bizarre new-age (or ancient) occult plots, along with probably an unhealthy dose of gay martian overlord plots thrown in. I guess the trick is to 1. not go crazy and/or turn into a paranoid psychopath, 2. filter out all the BS 3. not discount an idea just because of the source 4. ??? 5. profit!
Seriously, though. combine the 'barcodes are the mark of the beast' and the possibilities for abuse of implantable electronics, and you have some serious conspiracy-fodder. Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Dammit, where's my bourbon! No, I mean, tinfoil hat! (ha ha only serious?)
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I fully expect to see this come up again. It seems more and more they are pushing the limits as to how many of our civil right they can take away. Depending on how many of their constitutants they can placate, they progress or retract operations. It's been done for years, ex. Prohibition. They took away a right, People bitched and yelled and creamed and flat out broke the law to the point they gave the right back and dubbed prohibition "The noble experiment". What's so noble about stripping our rights away?
All ranting aside, we need to put a stop to the theory of "Let's see which rights we can take away" and more "Let's see what rights we can protect". In examples such as this don't be satisfied with the fact that they withdrew the plan, let them know how disgusted you are it was ever conceived in the first place.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
It's not about the "wish to copy throw-away commercial entertainment". That's already against the law, and will most likely remain so, DMCA or no DMCA. The issue is whether we have the right to control the operation of our own computers, or whether (government/corporations/etc) may force us to install "restraining bolts" that keep our computers from doing things they consider undesirable. To the extent that one's computer acts as an extension of one's mind, and the Internet as an extension of one's voice, such measures are nothing less than an attempt at thought control. So yes, for a society that increasingly relies on computers and the Internet to conduct its public discourse, it is a human rights issue. Silencing someone with government-mandated software is no different in principle from silencing them any other way.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Not to sound like some Noam Chomsky article... The "enemies of freedom" line is political scape-goatism supported by a massive failure of the 4th Estate. CNN is not doing us any favours by pounding home the message that *we* are the only victims.
The politicians and media have been telling us about our moral superiority for so long that we've effectively lost the ability to see ourselves as the rest of the world sees us. The United States of America and its western allies have propped up as many puppet dictators as they have shut down, and certainly started more wars than they have ended. We look at people like Noriega, Marcos, the Iran-Contra affair, bin Laden, etc. as isolated disasters instead of seeing them as eggs in the same US-made crate.
I'm not suggesting that driving airplanes into buildings is excusable by any stretch of the imagination. What really scares me, though, is not the next terrorist act but the fact that people don't see (or refuse to acknowledge) the cause-effect relationship at play here. As long as the 1st World governments are abusing 3rd World nations there will always be those who have the means and desire to fight back.
The best way to keep the "enemies of freedom" from hiding behind legal or technological walls is to stop manufacturing these enemies of freedom. Perhaps the Canadian diplomat's "moron" comment wasn't so far off base.
ll: bye, Karma. It's been nice knowing you.
Then offer an alternative. Don't make insulting comments about someone in the guise of an anonymous poster and then offer nothing as a means of an alternate course of action.
Or are you trying to state in a roundabout wait that all is lost and we don't have a prayer of changing things, so why bother?
Please do me a favor: If you're a US citizen, please stay home on the first Tuesday of every November. I can't bear the thought of someone like you helping decide who is in office.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)