Feed aggregator

The Navy to Investigate Commander's Vulgar Videos. That has headlined yesterday's news. From what I've heard, all this video really shows is that Capt. Owen Honors is probably an alright guy and the sailor aren't uptight about gays at all. When are they going to investigate the commander behind Collateral Murder or any number of similar such incidents such as the ones in this video?

The Navy to Investigate Commander's Vulgar Videos. That has headlined yesterday's news. From what I've heard, all this video really shows is that Capt. Owen Honors is probably an alright guy and the sailor aren't uptight about gays at all. When are they going to investigate the commander behind Collateral Murder or any number of similar such incidents such as the ones in this video?

Probably because he didn't get what he really wanted for Christmas, on January 5 1991, Finnish computer science graduate student Linus Torvalds went out and bought himself an IBM PC. He then proceeded to waste the next month playing Prince of Persia before he began in earnest the work that resulted in the first iteration of what became the Linux kernel. While this means that Linux is now entering it's 20th year, the Free Software Movement is significantly older. Rooted in the hacker culture of the 1970's, it dates its formal beginnings to Richard Stallman and the founding of the GNU Project in 1983. The development of the Free Software Movement has been inextricably intertwined with the development of the Internet. Free Software could never have obtained the force that it has, had it not been able to utilize the power of the Internet to unite developers from around the world in massive programming projects.

Probably because he didn't get what he really wanted for Christmas, on January 5 1991, Finnish computer science graduate student Linus Torvalds went out and bought himself an IBM PC. He then proceeded to waste the next month playing Prince of Persia before he began in earnest the work that resulted in the first iteration of what became the Linux kernel. While this means that Linux is now entering it's 20th year, the Free Software Movement is significantly older. Rooted in the hacker culture of the 1970's, it dates its formal beginnings to Richard Stallman and the founding of the GNU Project in 1983. The development of the Free Software Movement has been inextricably intertwined with the development of the Internet. Free Software could never have obtained the force that it has, had it not been able to utilize the power of the Internet to unite developers from around the world in massive programming projects.

2010 has been a tumultuous year, 2011 promises more of the same...

Happy Holidays  and Happy New Years from Linux Beach

I hope you and yours are enjoying these holidays and are already well prepared for the new year. You have weathered the storms of 2010 so may 2011 bring you fair breezes and smooth sailing. But just in case, please prepare for a hurricane. Most of all I want you to be safe in this coming year.

2010 has been an eventual year at Linux Beach...

2010 has been a tumultuous year, 2011 promises more of the same...

Happy Holidays  and Happy New Years from Linux Beach

I hope you and yours are enjoying these holidays and are already well prepared for the new year. You have weathered the storms of 2010 so may 2011 bring you fair breezes and smooth sailing. But just in case, please prepare for a hurricane. Most of all I want you to be safe in this coming year.

2010 has been an eventual year at Linux Beach...

I wasn't going to go a diary today, but I just picked this up off of Slashdot and it is too juicy not to share, besides why waste a day?

Nite_Hawk writes "From the Article: 'Bank of America has snapped up hundreds of abusive domain names for its senior executives and board members in what is being perceived as a defensive strategy against the future publication of damaging insider info from whistleblowing Website WikiLeaks. According to Domain Name Wire, the US bank has been aggressively registering domain names including its board of Directors' and senior executives' names followed by "sucks" and "blows."'"

What follows are selected comments from this post on Slashdot.org. If you are following the WikiLeaks or Internet stories, you really own it to yourself to get familiar with this site.

I wasn't going to go a diary today, but I just picked this up off of Slashdot and it is too juicy not to share, besides why waste a day?

Nite_Hawk writes "From the Article: 'Bank of America has snapped up hundreds of abusive domain names for its senior executives and board members in what is being perceived as a defensive strategy against the future publication of damaging insider info from whistleblowing Website WikiLeaks. According to Domain Name Wire, the US bank has been aggressively registering domain names including its board of Directors' and senior executives' names followed by "sucks" and "blows."'"

What follows are selected comments from this post on Slashdot.org. If you are following the WikiLeaks or Internet stories, you really own it to yourself to get familiar with this site.

Today the MSM is using Tuesday's release of a U.S. Senate report on the humanitarian release from a Scottish jail of Abdelbesset al Megrahi, also widely known as the Lockerbie Bomber, to stoke the fears of terrorism, further support for Homeland Security and many other things besides. It is a propaganda campaign that is worthy of 1984, the book not the year.

This whole propaganda campaign is based on the solid assumption that Megrahi is definitely the Lockerbie Bomber. This is a very shaky assumption. All the best available evidence points to his innocence. He was the victim of a frame up. The MSM has been united in leaving out a few details that might trouble their narrative.

Today the MSM is using Tuesday's release of a U.S. Senate report on the humanitarian release from a Scottish jail of Abdelbesset al Megrahi, also widely known as the Lockerbie Bomber, to stoke the fears of terrorism, further support for Homeland Security and many other things besides. It is a propaganda campaign that is worthy of 1984, the book not the year.

This whole propaganda campaign is based on the solid assumption that Megrahi is definitely the Lockerbie Bomber. This is a very shaky assumption. All the best available evidence points to his innocence. He was the victim of a frame up. The MSM has been united in leaving out a few details that might trouble their narrative.

A lot has happened in CyberSpace since the FCC last addressed the questions of Net Neutrality and it's authority to regulate the Internet. It will do so again today. For month's now, the advocates of Net Neutrality have been demanding that the FCC assert unprecedented authority over the Internet for the purpose of protecting Net Neutrality. Now they will be shocked, shocked to find that the FCC has seized unprecedented authority over the Internet and then did little to insure Net Neutrality. While FCC Chairman Genachowski has kept the exact wording of the proposed new Internet regulations from the public, what has been leaked sounds as though they offer even less protection for network neutrality than the legislative proposal Google/Verizon made in August. However that is besides the point. It is my thesis that the current U.S. debate about the exact nature of FCC regulations around Net Neutrality misses and even obscures the much more fundamental question of jurisdiction: What right does the U.S. government, or any government for that matter, have to regulate the Internet? Another important question: Where does the main threat to Internet freedom come from?

A lot has happened in CyberSpace since the FCC last addressed the questions of Net Neutrality and it's authority to regulate the Internet. It will do so again today. For month's now, the advocates of Net Neutrality have been demanding that the FCC assert unprecedented authority over the Internet for the purpose of protecting Net Neutrality. Now they will be shocked, shocked to find that the FCC has seized unprecedented authority over the Internet and then did little to insure Net Neutrality. While FCC Chairman Genachowski has kept the exact wording of the proposed new Internet regulations from the public, what has been leaked sounds as though they offer even less protection for network neutrality than the legislative proposal Google/Verizon made in August. However that is besides the point. It is my thesis that the current U.S. debate about the exact nature of FCC regulations around Net Neutrality misses and even obscures the much more fundamental question of jurisdiction: What right does the U.S. government, or any government for that matter, have to regulate the Internet? Another important question: Where does the main threat to Internet freedom come from?

In my dairy, I have already given extensive coverage to attempts by the U.S. government to control the Internet. Now it would seem that other governments want a hand on the controls too, but only governments, thus taking control away from the non-government international organizations that have run the Internet so far.

A United Nations initiative is developing that attempts to put multiple governments in charge of the Internet but only governments. On Friday, Vint Cerf, who is generally considered the father of the Internet, and is currently Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, wrote in the official company blog:

The beauty of the Internet is that it’s not controlled by any one group. Its governance is bottoms-up—with academics, non-profits, companies and governments all working to improve this technological wonder of the modern world. This model has not only made the Internet very open—a testbed for innovation by anyone, anywhere—it's also prevented vested interests from taking control.

In my dairy, I have already given extensive coverage to attempts by the U.S. government to control the Internet. Now it would seem that other governments want a hand on the controls too, but only governments, thus taking control away from the non-government international organizations that have run the Internet so far.

A United Nations initiative is developing that attempts to put multiple governments in charge of the Internet but only governments. On Friday, Vint Cerf, who is generally considered the father of the Internet, and is currently Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, wrote in the official company blog:

The beauty of the Internet is that it’s not controlled by any one group. Its governance is bottoms-up—with academics, non-profits, companies and governments all working to improve this technological wonder of the modern world. This model has not only made the Internet very open—a testbed for innovation by anyone, anywhere—it's also prevented vested interests from taking control.

I just thought it should be noted somewhere that yesterday there was a pretty big anti-war demonstration in front of the Whitehouse led by Veterans for Peace. 131 people were arrested including a number already well known to the MSM including Daniel Ellsberg and Ray McGovern, two-thirds of those arrested were veterans and I couldn't find any TV News mention of this event.

I just thought it should be noted somewhere that yesterday there was a pretty big anti-war demonstration in front of the Whitehouse led by Veterans for Peace. 131 people were arrested including a number already well known to the MSM including Daniel Ellsberg and Ray McGovern, two-thirds of those arrested were veterans and I couldn't find any TV News mention of this event.

This Just In: Sunday Morning and Mastercard is down again.
Guess they picked the wrong season to screw with the Internet.

The notice at the top of the new Anonymous web page says,

11 dec - We have moved to anonops.eu
The host for AnonOps.net shut us down and told us to "prove we used legal money".
Bring the PAIN!

This means one of the main communications hubs for Operation Payback has been forced to move again and the company that is hosting it at the new address is already coming under pressure to drop the site. Website owner Maksims Sadovskis explains in this post that his hosting company has already received a complaint from Mastercard lawyers demanding that they delete this page, claiming that it is "cyber crime targeting the financial services industry."

This Just In: Sunday Morning and Mastercard is down again.
Guess they picked the wrong season to screw with the Internet.

The notice at the top of the new Anonymous web page says,

11 dec - We have moved to anonops.eu
The host for AnonOps.net shut us down and told us to "prove we used legal money".
Bring the PAIN!

This means one of the main communications hubs for Operation Payback has been forced to move again and the company that is hosting it at the new address is already coming under pressure to drop the site. Website owner Maksims Sadovskis explains in this post that his hosting company has already received a complaint from Mastercard lawyers demanding that they delete this page, claiming that it is "cyber crime targeting the financial services industry."

The Internet may already be starting to break apart. IT World writes two days ago:

Regardless of the supposed criminal intent of the affected systems, the seizure without notice of these domain names by US authorities sent shock-waves around the Internet world. It got people's attention in a much stronger way than version 1 of this enforcement operation had — the first iteration late last June seized the names of nine sites selling pirated first-run movies. Many people woke up to the reality of how vulnerable the DNS is to government meddling.

(More recently, the uproar caused by the WikiLeaks publication of US diplomatic cables — and subsequent attempts to censor the site and/or to hound it off the Internet — have resulted in what developer Dave Winer calls "a human DNS" implemented "in a weird sneaker-net sort of way," via Twitter and ad hoc bulletin-board sites.)

Within days of the ICE/DHS seizures, at least three separate initiatives to work around the DNS had been announced, and several existing alternatives were highlighted in the ensuing discussion.

The Internet may already be starting to break apart. IT World writes two days ago:

Regardless of the supposed criminal intent of the affected systems, the seizure without notice of these domain names by US authorities sent shock-waves around the Internet world. It got people's attention in a much stronger way than version 1 of this enforcement operation had — the first iteration late last June seized the names of nine sites selling pirated first-run movies. Many people woke up to the reality of how vulnerable the DNS is to government meddling.

(More recently, the uproar caused by the WikiLeaks publication of US diplomatic cables — and subsequent attempts to censor the site and/or to hound it off the Internet — have resulted in what developer Dave Winer calls "a human DNS" implemented "in a weird sneaker-net sort of way," via Twitter and ad hoc bulletin-board sites.)

Within days of the ICE/DHS seizures, at least three separate initiatives to work around the DNS had been announced, and several existing alternatives were highlighted in the ensuing discussion.