By Declan McCullagh (CNET) Paul Brigner, until last month a senior vice president at the Motion Picture Association of America, now opposes SOPA and Protect IP.
A senior executive that Hollywood hired last year to be its chief technology policy officer has undergone a remarkable about-face: he now opposes the Stop Online Piracy Act.
Paul Brigner, who was until last month a senior vice president at the Motion Picture Association of America, has emerged as SOPA’s latest critic. “I firmly believe that we should not be legislating technological mandates to protect copyright — including SOPA and Protect IP,” he says.
via MPAA’s former tech policy chief turns SOPA foe | Privacy Inc. – CNET News.
By Ross McGuinness (Metro UK) Instead of just worrying about what might happen to their material possessions after they die, more and more people are taking steps to protect the belongings they store online.
The emergence of cloud computing — storing your information on a network of remote servers on the internet as opposed to a local server — means images, songs, movies, email logins, social networking details and online bank accounts are part of a new digital property.
And, like any property, people are starting to include them in their wills. Eleven per cent of Britons say they have included, or plan to include, their internet passwords in their wills.
‘Control what is publicly available online during your lifetime – don’t wait for your executors or anyone else to sort your public profile out after death,’ said Sarah Needham, media and data protection lawyer at law firm Taylor Wessing.
She warned digital assets could be used ‘in an inappropriate and unexpected way’ if they were not looked after.
via What happens to your online life after you die? | Metro.co.uk.
By Jules Siegel (Moronia) Anthony Weiner’s wife came home and told him to quit. He immediately complied. I can get behind that. If he persisted, she would have had to share the consequences. She would have it on him forever. This way, when she gets annoyed about his hanging around in his underwear surfing the Web instead of looking for a job, well, she did insist that their life together was more important than his career. He will never have to mention this. It will always be there. Every marriage must have grudge tokens like this to maintain the balance of power.
But what life together? Cynics like me ask where she was when he was alone in his office seeking companionship online. I remember when couples used to actually live together. I guess it’s more exciting meeting in hotel rooms when their paths cross. Also, you don’t have to deal with the sheets and towels.
There’s a huge generational divide on Weinergate. The general opinion I’m reading in forums mainly populated by youth such as Fark.com and Reddit.com is that Weiner was an idiot for not realizing that his private Twitter messages could easily become public, as well as for lying about this when it first broke. Only right wing trolls think there was anything wrong with what he did, other than betraying his wife in a very trivial way. It’s rumored that he lied to President Obama about it, too, even more stupid, because Obama was his best hope for lenient treatment.
The political consequences are serious. The Democratic Party party is bleeding older white men. One of the main reasons is that it has become identified too closely with feminists and women’s studies type, who have far too much power. Now it embarks on driving away young white men (and many women). Weiner was one of their most popular politicians, admired for his giant clanging brass balls.
Nancy Pelosi and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are perceived as castrating feminist bitches by many men. I don’t think they are bitches. This is the end result of feminism, the desexualization of the American male. They are going to display Weiner’s balls in the Capitol Rotund
a as an encouragement to the others. They will cast them in bell metal, like giant baby shoes, and add clappers. They will be called the Captivity Bells.
Despite this, Weinergate will continue to fascinate the punditocracy.The lamest scandal in American political history still has lots of clicks, not to speak of lulz. Please leave sex out of this. Profound moral issues at stake. It is definitely a major civics lesson. Consider Ginger Lee, one of Weiner’s six known sexting partners (if you leave out the fact that they were not sexting, that is).
I did an image search for her name. Eek! Not safe for work or family viewing. Don’t click that link if you are easily shocked or are at work or where your significant other can see your screen.
My computer is in the living room. No dear, I am not surfing the web for porn; just doing some political research.
Whew.
So here’s a lady who is famed for being utterly lewd in public for pay. Weiner exchanges a hundred or so text messages with her about — are you reading this or looking at the pictures? — politics.
In a few of them, he flirts a bit — unsuccessfully — and mentions his “package.” She puns about getting Weiner in the morning to her Twitter followers. Tee-hee. I am going to start a competing service called Titter, for people who like to snicker. Is Titter magazine still in business? Hmm.
No pictures are exchanged, no sexting.
Politics.
While I think the congressman is to be commended for talking with people in all walks of life outside the Beltway, others disagree. That was ok for another Jewish boy named Jesus. [Hey, Jules, can we get a swimming pool boy joke in here somewhere?]
When the story broke, she claims he told her to lie. Now this concerned citizen is stepping forward as her civic duty demand his resignation because he is a LIAR!
Oh, by the way, she’ll be performing at the Los Angeles Pussy Cat Club at three times her usual rate. Um, maybe it’s not called the Pussy Cat Club, but it is definitely a place for baring the flesh. A sharp-eyed reader has informed me that it is the Pink Lady in Atlanta. Well, OK then. I am afraid to do any more research myself. It’s wonderful to see people move up in life, though. Is this a great country or what?
By Nate Anderson (ArsTechnica) American ISPs have convinced us that Internet access is expensive—getting speeds of 100Mbps will set most people back by more than $100 a month, assuming the service is even available. Where I live in Chicago, Comcast’s 105Mbps service goes for a whopping $199.95 (“premium installation” and cable modem not included). Which is why it was so refreshing to see the scrappy California ISP Sonic.net this week roll out its new 1Gbps, fiber-to-the-home service… for $69.99 a month.
Sonic.net has been around since 1994, selling DSL service in California, but it has recently expanded into fiber; the company has even secured the contract to manage Google’s own 1Gbps fiber network that will connect 800+ faculty homes at Stanford University.
Sonic.net’s new approach to broadband involves stringing its own fiber lines to homes and offering bargain-basement pricing; indeed, the new 1Gbps offering is the same price as the company’s earlier bonded 40Mbps DSL offering (in which two phones lines each provide 20Mbps of bandwidth to a home). The price even includes home phone service.
(TNW) The Wall Street Journal puts a large percentage of its news behind a paywall, requiring readers to sign up to read reports in full. Luckily, there is an easy, fully legal, way to access these articles and all it requires is Google’s Chrome browser and a lightweight extension.
Read WSJ Extension serves all of the WSJ’s articles, directly from its website, opening up reports that were previously behind a paywall. The extension operates by utilising Google’s own cache of the article when it is first published, directing users via Google’s servers to the requested page.
via Get behind the Wall Street Journal paywall free with a single click.
By Jules Siegel (Moronia) In case you missed it, a Democratic congressman named Anthony Weiner sent a picture of his bulging briefs to a female college student who had invited him to add her to his private Twitter harem. Unfortunately he inserted the wrong code and sent it to all his zillion followers, none of whom saw it because he immediately deleted it, except for a rather unsavory guy who was stalking him. Enter right wing fake scandal monger Andrew Breitbart. Congressman Weiner freaks and issues awkwardly false denial. Pictures of other beautiful Weiner Twitter harem girls then appear. One of them proudly confesses to consensual virtual sex with him and publishes the transcript.
Abashed congressman withdraws denial and tearfully cops to being a stupid putz. The next thing you know, Sarah Palin’s totally unpolitical Paul Revere vacation tour (in a bus plastered with ads for her PAC) to warn the British that we aren’t giving up our guns is off the front pages and Weiner’s weiner is getting Nancy Pelosi all hot and bothered, even though the offending picture is not exactly Marky Mark 
Now, as weiner jokes tsunami the Internet, Weiner is in the bunker making apologetic phone calls to Democratic bigshots. Meanwhile, his wife is off being Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff while three months pregnant, arousing teabagger speculation that Hillary is really the baby’s father and that’s why Weiner was resorting to fooling around online instead of saving his precious sperm for post-morning sickness sex. He performed his duty, right? What more do people expect of him? He’s just Hillary’s beard, they chortle.
I think Anthony Weiner and his wife should go on the View and play this out in public like adult human beings. It will be better than Nixon’s Checkers speech. This totally lame scandal is about on the level of getting caught jerking off while looking in the mirror. Like who cares? No body fluids were exchanged. It’s thought crime. I’m sure his wife was annoyed, but she’s his wife. You can be sure she gets annoyed a lot. Don’t they all? I don’t see how voters were involved in this.
The GOP doesn’t see it that way, of course (except for Boehner, who has not ventured an opinion, possibly because the Enquirer is reporting that he’s boning a blonde lady to whom he is definitely not married, as it would be bigamy). Once again, however, Democratic girly men (and women) are showing their utter lack of backbone, just as they stampeded to betray Bill Clinton. This could revive Joe Lieberman’s career as a Quisling sell-out. As usual they let the GOP set the rules and the agenda. This is why we lost the House in 2010. The youth vote does not consider sexting a moral flaw, you know.
I feel Pelosi should carry out an internal investigation and announce that Weiner did nothing illegal or unethical as a congressman. She can admonish him for imprudent behavior. The issue is then closed. Criticisms should be answered with an offer to sacrifice Weiner in exchange for Vitter’s resignation. When they complain that a representative for a senator isn’t a fair exchange, she should answer that life is not fair. If it were, Weiner wouldn’t be under inquisition barrage. Weiner’s and Vitter’s indiscretions are minutiae at worst. No non-theological corporation in the world would fire anyone over this.
I submitted this to HuffPost but tend to doubt that they will let this through. They seem to be in the IMPEACH THE SCOUNDREL camp. One of the moderators will surely kill it for failure to play by feminist political correctness rules. Also, I said jerking off and boning, very immodest terms, far worse than Marky Mark grabbing his own penis. Feminists are understandably offended because Anthony Weiner sent suggestive pictures to ladies he was dating online and they didn’t complain because of being programmed to accept male domination. He must resign because of the ick factor, wrote one otherwise usually sensible female Facebook friend. Sexting with consensual partners is icky, she explained, not because it’s really icky, as in body fluids and all, but because it’s politically icky. I am not making that up.
This is the letter I sent him yesterday instead of doing my assigned work, thereby incurring the annoyance of my bride, the beauteous Anita Brown, who can’t understand why I would find writing about Weinergate more compelling than making money and throwing it away on useless luxuries such as food. Despite that, she brought home flowers for me. Send the little homemaker flowers, Congressman Weiner, preferably white roses. This might not be the right time for a crotch picture, though.
Dear Congressman Weiner:
I don’t live or vote in your district, but I am a New Yorker, even though I’ve lived in Mexico since 1981, in Cancun since 1983. I vote in the Chelsea district, for Jerrold Nadler.
I’m writing to express my 100% support and admiration for you and also to give you some advice. You’ve got to fight back on this one by shaming the shamers. You committed a marital indiscretion, at worst. Your sex life prior to your marriage is nobody’s business but your own. These women sought you out, sent you their pictures and even eagerly cooperated in your mutual loveplay. They enjoyed it and so did you. These were intimate moments that were just as valid as anything that takes place while dating, not to speak of underwear advertising.
You can understand why your partners chose to expose what you did together. It might be considered a betrayal, but you understand how desperate people are in these awful times. Perhaps they also wanted to share the pleasure you had together (if not the publication fees) and even to support you by showing the real you. Now that it’s all out in the open, you invite people to look at these texts and photographs. You even give them a link.
You forcefully assert that you’re not ashamed of anything in them, except for the discomfort that they cause your beloved wife, who is the only victim here. Marriages survive on the ability to absorb and learn from the hurts we inevitably cause each other.
You didn’t promise your constituents that you would submit to castration. You promised you would represent their interests to the best of your ability. You’re sorry that your private life has provided the prudes with a distraction from the real issues that face us today, such as 25 million Americans looking for work.
I truly hope that you will understand and appreciate my advice. Many thanks for your service to the goals and fundamental beliefs of socially progressive people everywhere. I’m proud that you are out there working for me. Talk from the heart. Be funny. Be strong. You can win this.
With my very best wishes for your success.
(AP) Lying on his family room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of “pedophile!” and “pornographer!” stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises, the Buffalo homeowner didn’t need long to figure out the reason for the early morning wake-up call from a swarm of federal agents.
That new wireless router. He’d gotten fed up trying to set a password. Someone must have used his Internet connection, he thought.
Within three days, investigators determined the homeowner had been telling the truth: If someone was downloading child pornography through his wireless signal, it wasn’t him. About a week later, agents arrested a 25-year-old neighbor and charged him with distribution of child pornography. The case is pending in federal court.
It’s unknown how often unsecured routers have brought legal trouble for subscribers. Besides the criminal investigations, the Internet is full of anecdotal accounts of people who’ve had to fight accusations of illegally downloading music or movies.
via The Associated Press.
By Victor H. (DesignersCouch.org) An idea for a series with honest logos, revealing the actual content of the company, what they really should be called.
via Honest logos by @Viktor | Designerscouch #thecritiquenetwork.
By Lynn Olanoff (Express-Times) Marissa Mark, 28, hired a person through the website hitmanforhire.com for $37,000 to kill a woman with the initials A.L.R., according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Federal officials confirmed she is was not harmed.
Mark paid the website operator $19,000 through a PayPal account with a pledge to pay another $18,000 after the murder was completed. Mark allegedly used three stolen credit cards to make the $19,000 payment.
Officials said hitmanforhire.com was a real website and that two operators of the website are facing charges in California related to this incident.
via Marissa Mark hires hit man online while living in Allentown, prosecutors say | lehighvalleylive.com.
