Echoes on the Binary Sea

The recording industry just came up with yet another way to throw its customers in prison.  Tennessee is enacting a law to make it illegal to share passwords for “entertainment subscription services” like Netflix and Rhapsody.  From the Associated Press:

State lawmakers in country music’s capital have passed a groundbreaking measure that would make it a crime to use a friend’s login - even with permission - to listen to songs or watch movies from services such as Netflix or Rhapsody.

This isn’t just an effort led by overzealous local lawmakers, and it won’t stop at Tennessee’s borders.  The Recording Industry Association of America is behind the bill, and they’re pushing it across the country.

Pretty soon, it’s going to be illegal to listen to your music too loudly, you know, because someone else might accidentally hear it.

Someone really needs to put a stop to the RIAA and their bullshit.

Seventeen lost pyramids are among the buildings identified in a new satellite survey of Egypt.

More than 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements were also revealed by looking at infra-red images which show up underground buildings.

Initial excavations have already confirmed some of the findings, including two suspected pyramids.

The work has been pioneered at the University of Alabama at Birmingham by US Egyptologist Dr Sarah Parcak.

I wonder if this means they’ll find the Stargate soon…

The RIAA really just doesn’t know when to give up attacking and to start innovating. Its latest legal move is to file for a subpoena to get information from cloud storage provider Box.net to see if some people are using the service to store and share unauthorized music. There are, of course, a variety of different services out there for cloud storage, that allow individuals, small groups and companies to share files — not for illicit purposes, but because that’s how collaboration and sharing work. I use just such a service to share photos with my family, and another to share documents with coworkers.

I’m wondering if the rest of the USA can’t file some sort of class-action suit to just ban the RIAA from every court in this country forever…

On a Sunday morning before her soccer practice, not long after my daughter’s tenth birthday, she and I sat down on the couch with our tablets and I taught her to respond to lawsuits on her own. I told her to read the first message.

“It says it’s in French,” she said. “Do I translate?”

“Does it have a purple flag on it?”

“No,” she said.

“You don’t actually have to worry about it unless it has a purple flag.”

She hesitated. “Can I read it?” she asked.

“If you want to read it go ahead.”

She switched the screen from French to English and read out the results: “’Notice from the Democratic Republic of Congo related to the actions of King Leopold II.’”

Dropbox, the wildly popular online storage system, deceived users about the security and encryption of its services, putting it at a competitive advantage, according to an FTC complaint filed Thursday by a prominent security researcher.

The complaint (.pdf) charges that Dropbox told users that their files were totally encrypted and even Dropbox employees could not see the contents of the file. Last month, Ph.D. student Christopher Soghoian published data showing that Dropbox could indeed see the contents of files, putting users at risk of government searches, rogue Dropbox employees and even companies trying to bring mass copyright infringement suits.

Giving Transportation Security Administration agents a peek under your clothes may soon be a practice that goes well beyond airport checkpoints. Newly uncovered documents show that as early as 2006, the Department of Homeland Security has been planning pilot programs to deploy mobile scanning units that can be set up at public events and in train stations, along with mobile x-ray vans capable of scanning pedestrians on city streets.

Oh, hell no. At least with the scanners in airports, train stations, and all that, you could say, “Well, if you don’t like it, don’t go there.” But when they start talking about scanners mounted on vans to scan people walking down the street, and even able to peer inside buildings? It’s like they’re doing it just because they can.

For the second time in as many days, Egyptian armed force stormed the 5th century old St. Bishoy monastery in Wadi el-Natroun, 110 kilometers from Cairo. Live ammunition was fired, wounding two monks and six Coptic monastery workers. Several sources confirmed the army’s use of RPG ammunition. Four people have been arrested including three monks and a Coptic lawyer who was at the monastery investigating yesterday’s army attack.

Monk Aksios Ava Bishoy told activist Nader Shoukry of Freecopts the armed forces stormed the main entrance gate to the monastery in the morning using five tanks, armored vehicles and a bulldozer to demolish the fence built by the monastery last month to protect themselves and the monastery from the lawlessness which prevailed in Egypt during the January 25 Uprising.

“When we tried to address them, the army fired live bullets, wounding Father Feltaows in the leg and Father Barnabas in the abdomen,” said Monk Ava Bishoy. “Six Coptic workers in the monastery were also injured, some with serious injuries to the chest.”

Let’s not forget the situation of the Christians in the various Middle Eastern states that are in turmoil, and let’s hope and pray that the freedom that the people of these countries are fighting for will extend to the Christians as well.

In August, 2009, the improper installation of an all-weather floor mat from an SUV into a loaner Lexus sedan by a dealer led to the vehicle’s accelerator getting stuck, causing a tragic, fatal accident and launching the most challenging crisis in Toyota’s history. This iconic company, synonymous with safety and quality, was vilified by the American press, the government, and expert witnesses to plaintiff lawyers. Details usually unworthy of public attention, such as internal memos disagreeing over public relations strategy, became smoking guns that convinced the press and the public that Toyota vehicles had electronic problems causing runaway vehicles — and that the company was hiding this from the public.

The National Highway Transportation Authority (NHTSA), the government arm responsible for enforcing auto safety, came under attack for being too soft on Toyota. So they did what any good American organization does when they are attacked: They got tough and became enforcers. Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation, was the toughest, accusing Toyota of being “safety deaf” and vowing to get to the bottom of all Toyota defects that could endanger American citizens. He got help by paying NASA taxpayer dollars to conduct a study that dragged on for 10 months to study Toyota electronics.

What did we learn on February 8, 2011 when the report came out? That there is absolutely no evidence of sudden unintended acceleration caused by electronic problems in Toyota vehicles. The only causes NASA found were improperly installed floor mats and sticky gas pedals that can be slow to return. There has been only one documented accident caused by the floor mats — the one involving the loaner Lexus, where the dealer had used the wrong floor mat and failed to attach it properly with the provided restraining clips — and there have been no documented cases of accidents caused by the very small number of sticky pedals. Most accidents have been attributed to driver error.

I remember back when this was happening, it was just after the government takeover of GM. A couple times, I heard people suggest that, maybe, the whole crisis was being intentionally overblown by the government, in order to drive business away from an auto company that *wasn’t* dependent on federal money (while the “Big 3” in Detroit were failing and being “rescued” by the government, Toyota and Honda and other Asian manufacturers, were still doing good business).

The results of the NASA report actually tempt me to think those people might have been onto something…

I’ve been to Russia before the cold war ended. I’ve been all over the middle east. I’ve been to China. I’ve travelled all over Europe. I’ve been to Cuba and I’ve been to Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Nicaragua.

What all of these places have in common is that going there was a far more pleasant experience than going to the US. Yes, you read correctly: going to the US is more unpleasant than going to Soviet era Russia or even Iran 10 years ago. Sure, you sometimes have to bribe people, but at least I’ve not had gear stolen off me during security checks or had people break my gear without at least compensating me.

And taking pictures. Well, let me put it like this: you are 20 times more likely to get hassled for whipping out your camera anywhere in the US than in, say, downtown Teheran.

I offer this as an observation from the outside. The US is isolating itself and it is becoming a very, very unpleasant place to visit. I often talk to fellow travellers and even a lot of business types in nice suits often relate how they’d rather not travel to the US if they could help it and that they’d rather work with people in Europe or Asia. I can relate to that.

I quoted from the end of the article, as I think it makes the point most poignantly. Read the rest of the article if you’re curious as to why someone from overseas would rather travel to Cold War-era USSR than post-9/11 USA.

Is it just me, or is it increasingly apparent that the Great American Experiment has failed?