Dog day Afternoon

NZ Herald

Dog day Afternoon

3 bank robbery attempts on the same day show that video is not an instant invesigative tool, but it is probably the best way for the police to catch the bank robber who uses his anoniminity as a weapon. He is nothing special to look at so rather than alarm bells ringing at best his bland looks may excite a delayed relaction or a niggling matter of concern. It is not long though, until someone will make a connection somewhere and Mr John Doe will be caught in the act. Then video footage is a more powerful weapon in the hands of the police.

As a tool of forensics, this footage may reveal intimate details that may prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person filmed is or is not a suspect. For example, a pattern of spots or the shape of his nose and position of eyes. As a tool of investigation these brief glances of the suspect give few clues but that they have been published on the front page of today's NZ Herald, makes watch dogs of us all. It will also probably alert the suspect that someone is onto him.

The New Zealand Herald

The New Zealand Herald

Police Porn

One must consider work place computers much the same as the walls of the lunch-room. Yes, it is possible to cut out pictures of Brad Pitt or Naomi Watts and reveal one's dark youthful secret crushes to the world, but one only has to turn 24 to realise it may not advance your cause in the world of the workplace. In a similar way, hijacking the work owned resource (known as "bandwidth") for one's own neferious purposes may seem like a blokish tradition and such theft harmless, but it is incriminating in that it is theft.

3000 police staff were caught with pornographic images. Images that were produced to elicit a "private" reaction, perhaps a physical response such as sexual arousal or even laughter, both arguably "unacceptable in the workplace".

That smoking is "unacceptable in the workplace" bears certain fruit when examined for human rights logic. I have a right to live and you do not have the right to poison me finally won out over the right to destroy ones own heath, that had been finally lost.

That any fool can obtain the most bizzare or obscene material and that some of it may be illegal is a failure of border control/customs (for example, China tries to ban any such internet access), and, until it causes someone to express themselves in harmful manner to another, the police probably have not wanted to know. Now the extremely socially reactive will have good reason to believe that the police can be cured of a reluctance to act in cases such as rape of a sex worker. Such reluctance is assertable because computer forensics turns up porn on the police computer system. That it is made public and by lowering the bar to punish a more managable number of officers and let the rest be warned by their own sense of guilt is an interesting attempt to silence critics. The police in NZ seem subject to extreme policitical scrutiny as the opposition attacks the police minister, Hon George Hawkins, he may be the only real chink in Helen Clark's armour.

Content Skipping and Copyright Law

Content Skipping and Copyright

Internet News

Poor laws require more enforcement than well thought out laws. A new law in the US allows for content-skipping technology to be employed in DVD players so that parents can auto-pilot their children past dubious content in DVDs or other media. Home censorship in the hands of parents sounds excellent in theory. After all in our modern world, we view parents as liable for the actions of their children, so it stands to reason that parents should be the final arbiter of whether a child sees something dreadful or damaging.

In theory. In reality it is a violation of free speech. It is the author's right to be recognised for their own work, and if that work is changed or edited by a machine, then it is no longer a faithful representation of the author's work. Copyright law exists to protect the right of the author to make duplicates of movies, texts or music. Originators should be able to preserve the integrity and meaning of their communications alongside duplication control. Otherwise it is not free speech but encumbered speech.

A film maker or writer carefully structures a story so it works. When parts of it are missing by a mechanical or electronic means, there is nothing the author can do to ensure a faithful reproduction of the work. Most authors would prefer that their work not be distributed in an edited or abridged way.

If you took all the profanity and violence out of Shakespere - what do you have left? Not Shakespere. You have an inferior and less powerful rendition that can not impart the same social meaning as the full product. Inferior representations pollute the integrity of human thought and careful planning. Consumer disappointment is the result. That, and badly educated children who think a Shakespere play is a nice fairy story. Pity them, for when they meet with the real world that contains all its warts, they will have no intellectual resources to deal with it.

It is therefore a very poor law as it destroys the work of creative people and allows robots to rule our thoughts. Not to mention that it defeats free speech, automatically.

Spam

Spam comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes as it evolves to conquer protection against virus infection, trojan horse programmes that lie dormant for some time before being triggered, either by, for example, running a script that runs every end of month. Back ups at that time are essential.

Ferocious spam is also a disservice to those that spam to make money. They employ the same technology as do keystroke relay systems that can silently and efficiently capture every keystroke you type from there on, and then send it encrypted to a storage place. The US Government most likely already records the internet in that very fashion - it is not even a remotely private medium.

The law acts against those that use spam to make money. The law can not keep up with those who use spam to destroy computer data if they are smart enough. The only solution is universal client monitoring. What else is driving the price of raw memory down? Silicon was always going to be a cheap resource, so memory has become less a commodity but almost a consumable product, when old memory becomes slow, it is replaced by another set of initials that can conquer previously impossible speeds. Watch how fast that screen clears! See that curve calculation whizz you by. Watch movies, just like a "real DVD player". Watch anything that's remotely video. Enable the user to infinitely distribute and duplicate works and then reap the legal benefits. The recording industry collects for artists and sues for its own expansion. It has a huge source of readily available data forensics.

It is that field that is of importance. Not only what is left behind, but what transpires. For a change, one is able to make an indelible copy of a news story and record history as it happens. Researching that history is what Google is laying claim to, the searching of the history we weave. Myths can be dispelled, when we can search history.

Spam pervades myths about artificial fortunes that is being offered to you at no cost on the part of some self-acclaimed provender of miracles. For example, supplying you with myths about your computer system security.

Here is the real fact. Nothing on your computer is sacred. Anything is available to the skilled network engineer or systems programmer. Scanning data streams sounds innocuous enough, maybe, but recording every keystroke - that is a real threat. The American Government has spend billions on security and that expresses a need to monitor data streams. The model of a recording device that constantly analyses and decrypts streams of information from a data source is not as unrealistic as it sounds. Of course, the vast majority of data sources (for example the webaddress of a registered media such as a newspaper) can be ignored. But certain patterns of encryption or even delta patterns may reveal the work of terrorists or banks or others.

Of course, it is the trailing of reasons for suspicion that lead the law into places criminals do their deeds, but never before has the historical context so favoured the law. Now that your every thought can be monitored, a police investigation may delve into more than you may think. And fair enough. Personal veracity matters when it comes to money and property otherwise one has to abandon the idea of money and property.

Now that the law has started to act against spammers, and all spammers have left trails that ultimately reveal who they are, the tide of spam is turning into something more threatening. Intimate intelligence and knowledge works both ways.

Spammer sentenced

newsobserver.com | Local & State : First felony conviction and sentencing has now occurred of Jeremy Jaynes who used the internet to peddle pornography and committ fraud.

Will the rest of the spammers suddenly take a pause to hide themselves? The matter will go to appeal, and no wonder, Jaynes was grossing $750,000 per month from his operation. Sending him to jail is a waste of a talented but flawed individual. The question of whether society needs protection from the spammer or if "Free speach" must apply to what is a powerful form of broadcasting are both worthy of discussion.

The law targeting junk email raises constitutional quetions: prison time will be defered until the matter is heard under Appeal.