French 3-strikes Copyright Law

A new, terrible law is making its way through the French senate right now. It requires ISPs to disconnect a user after three alleged copyrighted content downloads. This is an insanely terrible law for many reasons, including:

• Virtually everything on the internet is copyrighted in some form, and any "visit" to a web page requires a download of HTML, so this effectively outlaws the entire web.
• The bill, of course, is intended to apply mainly to video and audio bits. Since everyone effectively becomes a criminal under this law, selective enforcement will be the name of the game. Media companies, who are behind the whole initiative in the first place, will move to enforce the law's provisions against those who they feel are most threatening to their profits. That is, users of peer-to-peer networks.
• There is no due process mentioned in the article, (not to mention that a constant due process procedure for every internet user is way too costly for the bureaucracy) so we can only presume that these 'strikes' will be tallied at the whim of the ISPs and media companies.
• Internet access is becoming more and more of a necessity as more functionality moves on to it (communication with friends and family, banking, shopping, employment, etc.)

A commenter on Slashdot points out that this law is supported by a corresponding business interest for basically every layer of the network stack:

This law was mainly pushed by Vivendi but there are powerful backers from all across the spectrum:

* Telecoms firms that want a mandate to filter all Internet traffic so that they can block all P2P, and then VoIP, and then video streaming and then anything which competes with their monopoly products.
* Large ISPs, because these are now all owned by the telecoms firms.
* Vendors like Cisco because they want to sell loads and loads of expensive filtering equipment.
* The music industry, because it still thinks it's going to sue its way back onto the right side of history. Stupid kloten, when will they learn?
* The movie industry, because they've drunk the music industry koolaid.
* The TV industry, because they want to sell more DVDs and because their distributors in the digital age are, of course, the ISPs.
* And finally, certain software firms, because the only way to implement this law, finally, is to use a fully locked down operating system that only runs authorized software, so no Linux.

The French tried so hard to get this same law pushed through the European Parliament, but that seems to be saner.

There are similar legislative pushes all around Europe, at the national level, and for the same reasons.

The Internet is, really, under attack from concerted and powerful forces that hate what those free packets represent.

A New Vanguard in Internet Censorship: Austrailia

Australia's Labor party has plans to censor the entire Internet based on a new "cyber-safety" initiative. Additionally, if you want your Internet even more watered down than that, you can opt in to an additional blacklist that will block content "inappropriate for children." Who elects these bozos?

Chinese surveillance one-ups itself

Chinese citizens must now must have their picture taken and id card scanned when entering an Internet cafe. This in addition to, you know, being constantly monitored by their government while on the internet, being monitored by big mamas and the whole blocking access to any kind of information that interferes with the regime's dogma thing. Oh, and these details are entered into a city-wide database. Just when you thought Chinese surveillance couldn't get any more intrusive...

eBay linked to Chinese text-message surveillance

Man, if one Silicon Valley giant after another isn't caught red-handed aiding Chinese government evildoers. This time it is eBay, who in a joint venture with a Chinese company owns the company that operates the Tom-Skype text messaging system. Apparently the Tom-Skype system was logging user-identifiable messages that contained certain topics that might be critical of the Chinese government. Luckily, the New York Times article that mentions it at least has the decency to mention the NSA is doing the same thing over here, avoiding the rank hypocrisy that permeates much American coverage of Chinese government policy.

Coverage:
Seth Finkelstein
New York Times

Military assigned to Domestic Post

Prepare for martial law. A portion of the military has just been assigned to the homeland for no apparent reason, and totally in violation of some of the most fundamental tenets of our democracy. I wonder how long it will be before this unit feels compelled to use deadly force on citizens.

Man Foils DHS Dragnet via Name Change

A Canadian recently circumvented the crack teams at DHS by changing his name to avoid being flagged at airports because his name was (previously) on the no-fly list. It's a good thing that the barrier to not being flagged as a terrorist is so high... no terrorist would ever have the resources to change their name. As we've seen in the past, this kind of incompetence at DHS only prevents stupid terrorists from flying, and if these terrorists are so dumb, what's the worry?

What is the real reason lists like these exist?

GOP on Quest to Disenfranchise Voters... Again

Apparently Republicans are attempting to exclude people that have had their houses foreclosed from voting. Perhaps it is not just coincidence that these are the very people that would be the most likely to vote against the ruling regime in an important election swing state?