Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Google, Surveillance, Stardust
Brin defends Google's recent actions in China. An anonymous reader writes "Fortune Magazine recently had a chance to talk to Google co-founder Sergi Brin and asked him about the company's decision to accept censorship in China. As you might guess, Brin defended the move. From the article: 'The end result was that we weren't available to about 50 percent of the users. [...] We ultimately made a difficult decision, but we felt that by participating there, and making our services more available, even if not to the 100 percent that we ideally would like, that it will be better for Chinese Web users, because ultimately they would get more information, though not quite all of it.' Human Rights Watch boss Ken Roth, though, wasn't impressed and had a few scathing remarks about the decision."
DoJ criticizes Microsoft's delay in meeting antitrust regulations. Rob writes to tell us that the US Department of Justice is complaining that Microsoft is dragging their feet on certain antitrust technical documentation submission guidelines. From the article: "Microsoft acknowledged the current problems and the steps it is taking to correct them in a recent status report but "has not detailed the seriousness of the current situation," according to the DoJ."
Bush allies defend NSA domestic surveillance. Jason Jardine writes to tell us News.com is reporting that Bush's allies are coming out of the woodwork to support the recently criticized NSA domestic surveillance program. From the article: "In a continuation of a full-court press that began a day earlier, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday told students at Georgetown University that a wartime president has the lawful authority to eavesdrop on Americans' telephone calls and e-mail messages without court approval." Forgive me if I don't agree.
Wisconsin rolls back open-source voting. Irvu writes "One day after the good news that Wisconsin was requiring open-source electronic-voting software was reported on Slashdot, it was gutted. According to BloackboxVoting.org the open-source public review provisions of the bill were removed and replaced with a version requiring the state to escrow the code and, unless a recount occurs, provide only internal examination. The final form of the bill reads: 'Sec 5.905 "...Unless authorized under this section, the board shall withhold access to those software components from any person who requests access under s.19.35...' Meaning that public review is not required and should be, by default, refused. The Legislation History [PDF]reflects the change and points to the final crippled bill. [PDF]"
A look back at Pixar history. An anonymous reader writes "With all of the recent press coverage of Pixar getting bought out by Disney it seems only fitting to take a look back at Pixar history. LowEndMac.com has an interested retrospective writeup exploring the beginnings of Pixar back in the 1970's by Dick Shoup through to the current day."
Stardust samples exceed expectations. carpdeus writes "MSNBC is reporting that the recent opening of the Stardust sample in a clean room appears to be a great success. From the article: 'It exceeds all expectations,' said Donald Brownlee, Stardust's lead scientist from the University of Washington. 'It's a huge success,' he said in a university statement released Wednesday. 'We can see lots of impacts. There are big ones, there are small ones. The big ones you can see from 10 feet away,' Brownlee observed."
'...We ultimately made a difficult decision, but we felt that by
participating there, and making our services more available, even if not
to the 100 percent that we ideally would like, that it will be better for
Chinese Web users, because ultimately they would get more information,
though not quite all of it.'
Meaning: "Thereby ensuring that we could sell ads that reach most,
even if not to the 100% that we ideally would like, of the enormous
Chinese market."
Don't kid yourself. This has nothing to do with being evil or not and
everything to do with making money. Great big piles of money.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
NASA/JPL explain how dust was captured in Aerogel
alas, poor pixar! i knew him, horatio.
So... how long before the forces of ennui at Disney get to Steve and John, driving them out like Roy? How long before Pixar films are littered with the dumb, ultra-hip Disney characters populate the films?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
For the United States to enter a war, Congress must exercise their constitutional authority to declare war. They have chosen not to do so.
1. What you know you know.
2. What you know you don't know.
3. What you don't know you know.
4. What you don't know you don't know.
As long as Google tells people items where removed from their search because of their government, then Google is still providing information in the form of #2 instead of #4 like other search engines might, or the absense of any search engine would be.
Morphing Software
For one, on the bottom of the Chinese results they do show that the results were filtered according to local law. So, the Chiniese citizens are in fact informed that their results are being filtered indirectly by their Governement.
For two, Google, after all, is a business. They are not a NGO, charity, or some other organization that's in existance to make this planet a better World (TM). They are here to make their shareholders (and themselves) a return on their investment.
Three, Corporate citizenship, HA hahhahahahhahahhahahahhahahhahahahhahahhahahahhaha hhahahahha!
Four, there is no Easter Bunny or Santa Clause!
Five, you get my point.
It will be interesting to see how things are viewed when more of the 'truth' is settled on in 20 years for this administration. Will they be seen as the just and right protectors of Democracy, or will he be seen as the worst president of all time?
IMHO, they are with this CIA blowup working on either
1)Nailing their own coffin shut on this
2) Permanently dismantling the basics of american freedoms
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"
Ben Franklin
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I want some big, important pundit on the right to give an example of something the president does not, by their lights, have the authority to do. If he becomes a dictator in wartime (which it's mighty sketchy to say we're in), why not come out and say this? Can he rape and murder? No, seriously, if he can break one law, why not others?
Shit, I thought I understood our system of government--the legislature expresses the will of the people in laws; the executive branch then implements and executes said laws. For instance, if Congress makes kidnapping a federal offense, the FBI (under the Department of Justice) investigates kidnappings. But according to some of our less stable pundits and her commenters, "The legislature cannot limit the authority of the president, just like the president cannot limit the authority of the legislature." So, does he have divine, kingly powers now? Did we suddenly get that?
Oh, who am I kidding? Clearly the president's imperial authority stops at the beginning of the next Democrat administration.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I trust that the "It's not illegal because we don't think it is" defense will convince no one. This administration is resembling the Nixon administration more and more, and I can only hope that it ends the same way.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
While I don't particularly care for what China is doing, I can't particularly blame google.
First off, his statement is correct - that is a large market. I can't blame them for wanting to get into it. The Chinese govt is the one imposing the standards - hate them.
Secondly, this is still a march towards not having the censorship. If you demand an all or nothing approach then, at least with this Chinese Govt you will get the "nothing" end of the bargain. It's like demanding "Give me a million dollars or give me death" - while the million dollars would be nice, death sucks and will be the option you are stuck with if you stay headstrong about those being the only two options. Better to choose the path that will get you to the million dollars as quickly as possible and still be likely.
Right now, Chinese Govt is in a hard place (though very good for the rest of the world and the Chinese people). If they do not progress they will die, in order to progress they need to open the information avenues. By opening those avenues they are going to die. All this will do is give another way for dissidents to gather information and learn and show normal average people what they are missing.
It would be nice to wave a magic wand and have them be a free country, but that isn't going to happen. It's going to take a long series of concessions with a final bloody conflict, though with enough of their country inching towards it it will be less bloody - in the long run stuff like this will save lives even if it isn't what you want ideologically.
As to if the founder of google are being greedy bastards who trample on the Chinese rights or see the second part of what I say will depend on your view of the company. They aren't going to say either way. Given Google's past I generally suspect that the second benefit I said plays in their decision - though I do not know how much.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday told students at Georgetown University that a wartime president has the lawful authority to eavesdrop on Americans' telephone calls and e-mail messages without court approval.
When asked when the war would started, Gonzales replied "September 11th, 2001". When asked when it would end, he said "Never".
Gonzales, however, is wrong. The war on terror is over! We're now in the "struggle against Islamic extremism".
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Georgetown University that a wartime president has the lawful authority to eavesdrop on Americans' telephone calls and e-mail messages without court approval."
Somebody needs to tell this jackass that WE'RE NOT F%#KING AT WAR!!! Unless I missed it when Congress issued a declaration of war, but somehow I doubt I slept through that.
Just because a few morons in DC make up a fancy sounding name like the "War on Terror" or "War on Drugs" does not mean that we are magically at war.
What a freaking asshat.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Having been at Disney during the CAPS days, I can tell you that the article gets a lot of details wrong (e.g. animators didn't paint cels and they weren't painted automatically) but at a higher level it's still an interesting story.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
And yet they agree to China's much more intrusive demands.
No, I don't think they are "doing evil" with any of it. But heros they are not either.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Tiananmen = "Lock say" (this is actually the westernized way of saying the date, which I found through my un-censored USA Google search).
Other censored phrases can be replaced with more obscure stuff. lakfjdslkdj for democracy, etc. Of course the censors will just clamp down on that. It will be an arms race, just like spam, and just as spam always gets through, so will censored material. Come on, you know you want to enlarge y0\/r d3mocrasee p3nis.
So yeah, the Google execs look like they caved in, but they probably realize this will work as well as... DRM. To the young Chinese hackers: Gentlemen, start your compilers.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I saw this on Boing Boing earlier today.
Future lawers protest AG's speech
The link is to someone's blog, but the pictures are priceless.
Don't you have someone you'd die for?
While I don't particularly relish the prospect of eavesdropping without warrants, the fact is that warrants take a gigundous mountain of paperwork to get, and that sometimes they really won't be obtainable fast enough to make a difference.
Your statement would be sensible IF it wasn't for the simple fact that:
a: They have 72 hours to get back with the FISA court to explain an unwarranted wire tap.
b: We just happen to have a nice little thing called the Constitution which states in EXPLICITLY CLEAR LANGUAGE:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Now, what part of that statement ELUDES your understanding? HMmmmmmm???
If idiots like you prevail, we will ALL end up with the government YOU deserve.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
It seems to make sense now.
When asked when the war would started, Gonzales replied "September 11th, 2001". When asked when it would end, he said "Never".
But Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia...
I find most of you on Slashdot, say one of two things about Google and China:
1) Google is fine, it is not thier fault, blame the Chinese govt.
2) A corporation exists within the law, to maximize profit, and since google is following the law of the land, they are fine.
I think I have a problem with the large number of these posts due to the following:
1) Enabling th Chinese government to execute these laws, and by Google following them, does not make them right. In fact it sets a bad precedent, which I consider Cisco a far more insidious company than google which started most of these problems.
(i.e. If Cisco can sell high tech equipment to Chinese to hunt down people, why can't we?)
But, the problem remains. Defining corporate responsibility simply by a small set of laws, doesn't work. It doesn't work for coal miners, Nuclear Power Plants and it will not work for the Chinese people.
Google is enabling the Chinese government to torture, imprison and possibly kill polical leaders that who do not like the human rights track record of the Chinese government.
By ignoring these facts somehow doesn't fit quite well with the excuse that Google is a corporation and just exists out there innocently to make money.
It doesn't fit well with my conscious, anyway.
2) I think it is laughable, that Google excuses itself by saying "Oh we just obey the local return results of the country we are in.".
I also do not believe that informing people that the government is watching makes it fine and good.
The government could care less if you can see what they are doing, they only care whether or not they control WHAT you are seeing.
If you cannot see anything else, how does that make you any more powerful?
It does not.
In general, it looks like as long as the company makes money it is "OK" to do these things.
No law in China exists that says this is wrong, so that makes it OK right?
We have some serious issues on this web site if the majority of the posts I am reading are taking the naive position that because Google is obeying the local laws of the Chinese govt, and that because a corporation exists to make money for shareholders it is not responsible for anything else for the society in which it serves.
Serious kinds of bad mojo has historically come of this kind of line of thinking, and when you start involving governments with big tanks and nuclear weapons, nothing good can come of it.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Naturally, subsequent administations never cut back on these practices. Once an agency has an authority and a budget, it's very hard to remove either...
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Your second link
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/usc-cgi/get_external.c gi?type=pubL&target=107-40
And from the War Powers Resolution:
From your third link
From the War Powers Resolution:
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Enjoy. Tiananmen Square in English, on the American site: http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen+square
Tiananmen Square in Chinese, on the Chinese site:
http://images.google.cn/images?q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%8 9%E9%97%A8%E5%B9%BF%E5%9C%BA&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4% A2
At many universities in China, they only have access to domestic internet ( *.cn ) and to access ANYTHING foreign you need to find an unreliable proxy. I wonder how hard it might be to do some really long distance Wi-Fi from an uncensored internet source outside the country into the country (HK; Taiwan, which also has a few small islands right off the Chinese coast; Vietnam, S. Korea).
Not counting various missile strikes, CIA operations, commando raids, etc., which might be considered legitimate without a declaration of war (but certainly would be casus belli for the country being invaded).
Congress voting an "authorization to use force" is a sham and an insult to the Constitution.
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