Nominations Open For "Most Likely to be Shut Down By Government" 629
The corporate overlords at SourceForge asked me to name a Slashdot category for their upcoming
Community Choice Awards and to let you guys select the winner. I have named my category "Most Likely to be Shut Down by a Government Agency." We're going to run this like we do an Ask Slashdot call for questions — post your nominations into the comments here. Use moderation to send up good ideas. In the upcoming days we'll post another story where you can vote on the actual winner. Nominations need to include the project name, a link to some sort of official website, and a paragraph of why you think they deserve to win. The project that wins will gain fame, notoriety, and maybe a cease and desist order that they could print out and frame if they had that kind of time.
Truecrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
It's basically only a matter of time before the fear-mongers and political demagogues in the U.S. and elsewhere outlaw any form of encryption that doesn't include a backdoor for the NSA and other "trusted" government agencies. There has already been evidence of commercial encrytption (such as Windows encryption [slashdot.org]) including such backdoors. And when the commercial companies all cave, how long do you think it will be before the government comes after the open source projects too?
Re:Truecrypt (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Interesting)
It was an experimental encryption algorithm and I screwed up
my hard drive, and now I can't decrypt it.
Does that help?
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:4, Funny)
Who's there?
Will Yu.
Will you who?
WILL YOU STOP GIVING THE BRAINLESS GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRATS IDEAS!
Or at least use double ROT 13 encryption so the government can't read your ideas without using illegal encryption tools.
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
Walking around with them in your pocket isn't smart, though. Having them in your own home is frequently just fine, but taking them anywhere very frequently does constitute intent, if you're not a certified locksmith on a job.
So... that's not quite how it is with lockpicks. It depends on what State you're in. (Unless you're in Canada, of course. Canada requires certification even for mere ownership.)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Interesting)
Very good point. the whole 'possession with intent' argument used by our Gov't. and law enforcement/court system is just pure FUD. Currently THEY get to define 'intent' just based on possession, and that is the problem.
Common sense would dictate that 'intent' should be a seperate issue from possession, but by 'bundling' intent with possession,all bets are off.
It seems to be 'the WAR on mentality has automagically equated possession with 'intent', despite the facts actually present.
The 'facts' don't matter as long as you fit (even loosely) the 'profile'.
ARRGHHH! This 'New World Order' mentality really chaps my ass.
How is Boston Harbor setup for a 21'st century Tea Party these days? I think we need to explore this question here in the USA. Just thinking...
P.S. I know I am ranting in an offtopic direction, but when I enlisted in the US Army, I took an oath to defend our Constitution from enemies both foreign and DOMESTIC. WTF?!?!?!
I am really confused by what my proper course of action should be anymore. My instincts reload '1776-The Revolution' into RAM, but I doubt it would work now days with the apathy and 'consumerism' that is rampant here. I AM A CITIZEN (Egads- I hate this Newspeak Spelling, but nevermind), not a CONSUMER! I am a consumer when I go to a restaurant or pub- maybe when I go to a grocery store- otherwise I am a citizen, not a 'consumer'.
Is it too off-topic to say: I miss the social attitudes of my youth? (for reference, I was born in 1958- grad'ed HS in 1976- yes, I am older than dirt for most of you, and proud of it- I have seen a lot of really cool shit happening, but also a lot of not-cool shit too)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:4, Funny)
Dude. I for one resent what you're implying. I'm perfectly happy to join you in glorious revolution*.
* as long as it doesn't coincide with Friends and you serve lattes.
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:4, Informative)
Furthermore, with some clever tricks you could insert your encrypted data into the noise of an audio sequence. Assuming you could make it look sufficiently similar to the type of noise you normally get when you record audio, it would then be virtually impossible to distinguish a noisy recording from a good recording with encrypted data injected into it.
So no, unless they want to ban you from storing and transmitting data that contains even a random component ( and every sound recording, every photograph, every video feed contains some noise ) they can't ban encryption. They might be able to make it sufficiently hard to do it to deter most people from using it, but completely preventing it won't be possible.
Now what they COULD do , and what is far scarier, is they could ban general purpose computers, requiring all computer manufacturers to only make devices that run signed code only, and they could then include large quantities of spy ware into them, which phone home every 10 seconds , prohibiting you from even shutting them off.
Apparently some guy named George thought of this scenario some time ago and blew the whistle. Most voters don't seem to worry about it however.
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Interesting)
The drawback of a one-time pad system is the logistics of transporting the keys and having only two copies, that are destroyed after they are used.
Roosevelt and Churchill had transatlantic voice conversations during World War II that were encrypted using one-time pad technology. The conversations would remain unbreakable even if recordings of the radio transmissions were available today.
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing I enjoy harping on, is that there are many situations where OTP is actually quite practical; the transport and storage just aren't a big deal. For example: people you see in person every day. You put your phone next to your wife's phone at night, and they exchange pads over a wire or low-powered IR link or something. Your conversations the next day are OTPed.
As a general-purpose fix-everything solution OTP doesn't work, but sometimes it can, without really being very burdensome.
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
You put your phone next to your wife's phone at night, and they exchange pads over a wire or low-powered IR link or something.
How they generate these pads, on the other hand...
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Interesting)
We're talking about a device that has a radio antenna, a microphone, and probably CCD. It moves around all day, seeing inputs from all those different sensors, from your unique perspective. It's practically an entropy engine.
That doesn't work (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't use data from the same one-time pad twice, then it's pointless to use one one-time pad to send another one-time pad, because every N bytes that you receive for the next key is just replacing N bytes of your last key that now can't be reused to send any other data.
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Funny)
This differs from the TA (reserve) approach of "Bloody hell, we're being shot out. Screw BATCO, I never learned it properly anyways", pulls out mobile phone... "Hey Pete, yeah it's Dave here. You alright? ", etc... Much more pratical
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, I suppose the argument could be used for pretty much every project that is likely to be mentioned.
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Funny)
I hate it when people discriminate against me just cause of my face.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Truecrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows encryption doesn't "include such backdoors."
The random number generator is not used by default; a program has to specifically request it. If it does have a backdoor in it, presumably Microsoft added it so that other programs could be written with NSA backdoors.
Truecrypt is a Rogue Agent's Dream! (Score:5, Funny)
Queue Jack Bauer, beating you up:
Bauer: Gimme your passwords, elrous0. *Whack*
elrous0: OK, fine, it's 'gimmesomeluv1n'
Bauer's Assistant: OK, we're in. Hrm, it's just a bunch of computer stuff, some saved articles from business websites, some 80's metal mp3's and random e-mails. Oh, wait, he's using TrueCrypt.
Bauer: What's that?
Bauer's Assistant: It means he can give us a fake password that gives us fake information, but still keeps the real information hidden.
Bauer: What's your real password, elrous0?
elrous0: No, seriously, I gave it to you. That's it.
Bauer: Don't give me that crap. *Whack* Give me the real password!
elrous0: Dude, I just hang out on Slashdot and have a normal job. I'm not the guy you're looking for!
Bauer: A million lives are at risk, and this isn't going to stop until you give me the real password: *whack*
elrous0: Seriously, I'm telling you the truth.
Bauer: *Whack* *Whack* *Whack* *Whack*
elrous0: Ugh! My nose!
Bauer: *Whack* *Whack* *Whack* *Whack*
Bauer's Assistant: Um, Jack, do you think he could be telling the truth?
Bauer: No, this one's a pro. He didn't crack the whole time, and his accent is impeccable. He must be a deep cover operative. We'll try this again when he wakes up.
Oh, wait, I just played into the Conspiracy Theory myself.
Patent Busting (Score:5, Interesting)
Or has it been shut down already?
Re:Patent Busting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Patent Busting (Score:5, Informative)
For what it's worth, I thought it was funny.
Re:Patent Busting (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this site should win because it's very likely to actually shut down if Patent Reform comes through. However, even if patent reform fails, I think it would be interesting to see what the lobbyists and congressional members do to come up with to try and take them down, because this site is one of the few out there that do a damn good job of calling out the patent trolls. In addition, it's one of the few that make the public aware of what all of us on Slashdot have known all along: that the patent system sucks, and these are the people that take advantage of it.
Re:Patent Busting (Score:5, Insightful)
They want patents to stop small companies competing with them. If a small company sues them for patent infringement, they find lots of other patents in their portfolio that the small company is infringing, and come to some cross licencing deal. They can't do that with patent trolls because they don't have a business.
Re:Patent Busing (Score:3, Funny)
Software radio... (Score:5, Interesting)
The GNU software radio project
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/
is a good candidate. It proposes to let you make electromagnetic waves in a manner not subject to prior restraint by the FCC, and without the back-doors intelligence agencies have on many current means of communications.
This is naughty.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Software radio... (Score:5, Informative)
The government (and court-approved) excuse for regulating the broadcast airwaves is that the radio spectrum is a limited resource, therefore public, therefore not private property.
Out of the presumption that the nanny state is required to regulate the airwaves for the public good comes the corollary that regulation has to include preventing unauthorized transmitters and receivers, and that is why Software Radio is a prime candidate for outlawing.
Software Radio relies on the fact that computers nowadays are fast enough to dissect received signals and format transmitted signals completely in software in real time. You no longer need hardware frequency selectors. The hardware only has to receive or broadcast the general signal, and software formats the specific frequency desired.
Of course this scares the bejaysus out of the government. It would mean any computer and minimal hardware could bypass all government regulation. Consider all the recent spectrum auctions where telecom giants paid billions of dollars for exclusive access to specific frequencies -- along comes software which would let anybody broadcast on or receive from any signal desired without having to pay for specific hardware dedicated to specific frequencies. One small hardware investment, free software, and you have eliminated the need for all those many telecom-specific pieces of hardware for each purpose.
Certainly there is need for some standardization of frequencies and protocols, but studies have shown the current system is no longer necessary. Ultrawideband and frequency hopping may even make interference a thing of the past and reduce the need for regulation to general protocol specs, such as apply to phone lines and allow faxes, modems, answering machines, and so many other ubiquitous devices to connect to land lines without heavy handed regulation.
Re:Software radio... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about transmission (Score:4, Informative)
see 47 C.F.R. 15.121(a)
(1) Be incapable of operating (tuning), or readily being altered by the user to operate, within the frequency bands allocated to the Cellular Radiotelephone Service in part 22 of this chapter (cellular telephone bands). Scanning receivers capable of âoereadily being altered by the userâ include, but are not limited to, those for which the ability to receive transmissions in the cellular telephone bands can be added by clipping the leads of, or installing, a simple component such as a diode, resistor or jumper wire; replacing a plug-in semiconductor chip; or programming a semiconductor chip using special access codes or an external device, such as a personal computer. Scanning receivers, and frequency converters designed for use with scanning receivers, also shall be incapable of converting digital cellular communication transmissions to analog voice audio.
(2) Be designed so that the tuning, control and filtering circuitry is inaccessible. The design must be such that any attempts to modify the equipment to receive transmissions from the Cellular Radiotelephone Service likely will render the receiver inoperable.
Does it have to be the U.S. Government? (Score:4, Insightful)
ThePirateBay (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ThePirateBay (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure they have lax rules surrounding them in the countries that they are based but it's only a matter of time before it goes beyond "making an example" and they are made "a precedent".
After them, the next on the chopping block would be Mininova.
Re:ThePirateBay (Score:4, Informative)
wikileaks, followed by cryptome.org (Score:5, Interesting)
Matt
Re:wikileaks, followed by cryptome.org (Score:5, Interesting)
Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, I just mean that there is no free thinking here, just stupid cliched memes.
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Like this one?
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Throwing nonsense data into the polls helps it decide whether to eventually annihilate us as pests or tolerate us as slightly retarded cousins.
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
wikileaks (Score:5, Insightful)
MediaDefender (Score:5, Interesting)
Tor, Freenet, and I2P (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tor, Freenet, and I2P (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
FreeNet (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone notice the diamond sponsor? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Anyone notice the diamond sponsor? (Score:5, Funny)
This is Slashdot, everyone was looking to the left.
Freenet (Score:5, Interesting)
I Save RX (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I Save RX (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I Save RX (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, how about the Pirate Bay? (Score:4, Insightful)
GOA (Score:5, Insightful)
GAO (Score:3, Funny)
Trapster (Score:5, Interesting)
www.trapster.com [trapster.com]
It's an interactive thingy where you post where cops are hiding in speed traps.
I'm surprised it's still up, honestly.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Then tell me this (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why hide?
Seriously. If they want people to slow down, why hide behind billboards and bridges and other stuff and pop out and snag people?
If they honestly wanted everyone to slow down they'd just park on the side of the road in the very most visible spot. Watch your fellow drivers on the freeway sometime. They see a cop car, they hit the brakes. Even if he has someone pulled over and its obvious they could fly right by him.
They hide because it helps them write tickets. That's the goal of a speedtrap. Income. I'm sure the PR people love to smile at the camera and talk about how their just saving lives, but their actions simply do not agree. You can't tell me that having all this ticket revenue pouring in means nothing.
If they really want people to drive the speed limit, park out in the open.
Re:Then tell me this (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure they'll write a ticket if it will slow you down. However, if parking their car in a strategic location near where kids play on their day off will slow people down they are fine with that too.
Our right to know. (Score:5, Interesting)
In terms of software, PirateBay/Cryptome/GnuRadio. Anything dealing with encryption will NOT be shutdown, unless it involves a brand new and interesting algo.
Problem with Poll/Question (Score:4, Insightful)
Which, is probably not possible with the current point system, but maybe in the future you could alot eligable people a mod point on a specific topic/poll/etc.
Re:Problem with Poll/Question (Score:5, Informative)
We will do our best to try selecting the most popular/controversial projects for the eventual poll that will allow you to actually vote.
Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
What an extremely useful little competition ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Memory Hole and its 'Fellow Travellers' (Score:5, Insightful)
http://wikileaks.org/ [wikileaks.org]
http://cryptome.org/ [cryptome.org]
Tor? (Score:5, Interesting)
But isn't this fear mongering? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most take down notices have come not from law enforcement but from companies not the government.
The vast majority of these are civil actions.
Isn't this heading into the tin foil hats and black helicopter area?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Second Life (Score:4, Interesting)
Tor (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.torproject.org/ [torproject.org]
My money is on (Score:5, Funny)
I see BitTorrent going the way of the dodo... (Score:5, Interesting)
What's going to stop it? The RIAA, MPAA and giant ISP's like Comcast and Verizon that throttle back torrent traffic. They will make cases for costs in bandwidth and network maintenance. The fact that many people use these types of peer-to-peer networks successfully and almost untraceably to share copyrighted information only adds to the arguments that the RIAA and MPAA will make to get it shut down. Since there entire websites like The Pirate Bay, Mininova, IsoHunt and even the BitTorrent website that link users to a large number of seeds for the torrent swarms of information copyrighted and non-copyrighted and such, it doesn't bode well for the tool either.
The RIAA and MPAA will use strong arm tactics and cite currently pending investigations in other parts of the world against such sites that employ the use of such software to cut the problem off at the head. It will likely lead to sweeping legislation that will outlaw many forms of file sharing. For references, look at what the RIAA and MPAA have managed to successfully do against those users with home media center looking to place digital copies of their license media on to online storage. Sure, selling the means to do the illegal act isn't illegal but that doesn't mean someone won't try to make it illegal.
DIY Drones (Score:5, Interesting)
Peer-to-Peer Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Radio was unrestricted in its early days. Unrestricted mass communication is extremely detrimental to authoritarian governments. Net neutrality prevents ISPs and backbone providers from getting their vig. Nobody benefits from a peer-to-peer Internet except We The People, and most of us don't know that is the case, nor why. Show me something that does not have populist support, and does stand to allow profiteering and control if destroyed - and I'll show you a very tenuous place to stand.
Just say no to homemade A-bombs (Score:3, Interesting)
Seem pretty obvious to me. Of course if you are making substantial progress on this, you're going to get something a little more difficult to ridicule than a cease and desist letter from some lawyers.
Indymedia (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Please note that on November 14, 2007 the US government raided the warehouse for the Liberty Dollar certificates and digital currency and they are currently unavailable or redeemable except as numismatic items on eBay.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The real answer is probably Libertarian Party, which pisses off both (D) and (R) types.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming there's an election, and the USA doesn't find itself in a state of emergency so Dubya doesn't have to call an election.
My nomination for "most likely to be shut down by government" would have been the US Constitution, but I may be too late so I'll nominate the US Supreme Court.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Which Government? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:most likely to be yawned at is more like it (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's just an anomaly, but I've been seeing a bit of a repeating pattern lately. Borderline paranoid delusional people with a persecution complex about partisan political bias. They themselves are wildly biased, and it takes the form of baseless accusations of opposite bias, even against entirely non-political non-partisan statements complete strangers. They literally just imagine things and hang them on other people like Christmas tree ornaments, and by themselves imagining biased things about the other person it somehow "proves" that other person biased.
It was pretty interesting when someone went on a "bias" rant against me with all sorts of stuff that came out of their own imagination, especially when they managed to effectively toss in an accusation that I was sexist. A really neat trick considering that no one had even menentioned gender prior to that point. Chuckle.
One of the critical aspects to creating and protecting extreme bias is psychological filtering, uncritically embracing anything that serves that bias, and finding ways to automatically disregard anything that might challenge that position. For example if you decide someone is wildly biased and everything they say is completely unreliable, and they say 23+38=61, you don't have to waste any thought seeing if it's true or not. The source is "biased", therefore one can automatically send the untrustworthy information to the trash heap without wasting any mental effort evaluating it at all.
Baseless accusations of bias are themselves bias, are themselves a powerful psychological mechanism of creating and perpetuating that person's own bias.
I have some speculations on why I think this might currently be a particularly common issue, but such speculation would be particularly fertile ground for bias and accusations of bias. Heh.
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