a quick look at – some of the things I read

"Zoho, a Web site that serves hotels, is barely alive. Pichinson
has arrived to grab and sell its assets on behalf of creditors. Coffee
cup in hand, he marches from room to room with three haggard Zoho employees
in tow. They inspect computers, golf clubs and electric dart boards
the debris left after 240 layoffs." – full
text

"I deal with the FBI almost weekly. I am under two federal gag
orders and expecting a third. I obviously cannot speak about any details
and only mention this because it was mentioned prior to receiving the
order. They have visited my humble abode in the god awful hours of the
morning and I’m fairly certain that they have me on speed dial. The
last call was at least to tell me they’d be visiting again. Nice guys,
actually. They’ve been very pleasant every time we’ve spoken or met.
But all the same, I’d rather not have to go through it at all."
– full
text

On the Internet, we have a leftover set of people from the 60’s and 70’s
who are technically adept but socially stunted and confused. They have
no real respect for much of anything other than their own convenience
and freedoms be damned. These people will be happy to try and blackmail
you to get what they want – using the law as it suits them and ignoring
it when it doesn’t.

So, how would you like it if your email was shut down by your ISP because
they had been threatened with shutdown by a few people in another
country who are upset by what someone else on your ISP had to say?

This happens every day. Organizations have arisen that keep private ‘blacklists’
of ISP’s. Many ISP’s subscribe to and enforce these blacklists. Why? Because
if they don’t then they get blacklisted themselves!

"The current list of anti-spam restrictions is not written down
anywhere that I could find; you only find out when a blacklist notice
appears in your inbox, telling you that you are going to be thrown off
the Internet unless you immediately change. Next week they could demand
that any ISP which is also a phone company must cut off phone service
to alleged spammers; the following month demand that every ISP turn
over credit card and/or customer address information on demand. (Some
people claim that their "fee" for reading a spam is $50 or
$500; I’m sure they would like to immediately charge somebody’s credit
card for it, and let the details and legalities sort themselves out
later)." –
full text

The theory is that it is OK to shut down the email and websites of millions
of people to make sure that some long haired 60’s communist wannabe doesn’t
have to hit the delete key when he checks for email from his friends telling
him how much they all mate Microsoft.

 Fortunately, some people are fighting back. The guy who founded
the EFF, for instance.
You can read
his story of censorship
here, and he does an OK job of explaining why this is all a bad thing.
Other stories are here,
and
here.

Anyway, ORBS is one of the first of these online terrorists, and it just

shut down because it turns out it’s something people can sue you for
when you shut down the internet access of someone else because they annoy
you. There is some Slashdot
discussion of all this.

Personally I find the message on their website
so deliciously appropriate I am giggling.

In other words,

big brother knew if you went to the Superbowl. This was bad.

Well, now in Tampa they are putting the same system to work

on the streets. They will be able to watch and identify
anyone who passes one of those cameras. For now, they are just looking for
criminals – but how long till they are just plain tracking anyone and
everyone?

Between this, and EZPass
– not to mention the tracking abilities built into OnStar and so on you
are screwed if they want to find you. Some Slashdot discussion is
here.