censorship

The more one travels, the more one lives in foreign countries, the more one realizes that not everyone thinks the same way.

This is a good thing. Because if everyone was, say, American, then the whole world would feel more comfortable with violence, rather than sex. Which would have dire consequences for the world's ability to procreate. And recreate.

One wonders, though, whether there are many countries in the world that would support Pakistan banning rude text messages.

The Guardian has politely informed me that the country's telecoms regulator banished around 1,600 words or phrases that are … Read more

Web sites opposed to a federal anti-piracy bill were coming up with some innovative ways of protesting the proposed law, which they claim would allow for Internet censorship. But the protests were interfering with some Web surfers.

In honor of "American Censorship Day," some Web sites were symbolically blacking out their front pages today. The big pop-ups with a darkened background urge people to contact Congress and express opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The House of Representatives held its first hearing on the controversial bill today.

Hollywood studios, the recording industry, large content holders and … Read more

The Stop Online Piracy Act, a controversial nutty, delusional and shortsighted bill created by people who could be construed as idiots, is hitting a buzzsaw of Internet opposition. Large companies are also starting to tabulate their potential compliance costs.

On the surface, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) sounds reasonable. All the legislation wants to do is stop online copyright infringement. The rub is that anyone can complain and have sites taken down and cut off from their revenue sources. Yes, you too can be a rogue site.

SOPA was introduced Oct. 26 and despite some initial outcry largely went … Read more

Blue Coat Systems has confirmed that its devices were being used by Syria to censor the Web and said it is investigating how they got into that country despite a strict U.S. trade embargo, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

The appliances were "transmitting automatic status messages back to the company" Blue Coat executives told the newspaper.

"Blue Coat says it doesn't monitor where such 'heartbeat' messages originate from," according to the report. "Computer code reviewed by the Journal indicates that Syrians were also using other Blue Coat products, raising questions about how … Read more

In the tech news this week, Stephen and Brian bust me for buying an iPhone 4 on eBay to tide me over until there's a phone I really want--or until my Verizon contract is up. Nicole Lee joins us to talk about Nokia and Microsoft's new baby, the Lumia 800, and Sony's plans to get serious about making smart phones. Plus, stock advice from the gang, the coming nightmare that is the Stop Internet Piracy Act, and Computer Love.

A new report from Google shows a rise in government requests for user account data and content removal, including a request by one unnamed law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality--which the company refused.

The latest Google Transparency Report, released today, also shows historic traffic patterns on Google services via graphs with spikes and drops indicating outages that, in some cases, indicate attempts by governments to block access to Google or the Internet. For instance, all Google servers were inaccessible in Libya during the first six months of this year, as was YouTube in China.

But the … Read more

China's long history of Internet censorship is what's best for the public, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters yesterday.

According to Reuters, which spoke with Yu in an interview published today, China believes that its "Internet management" is not only "lawful," but is designed to "safeguard the public."

"We are willing to work with countries and communicate with them on the development of the Internet and to work together to promote the sound development of the Internet," Yu told Reuters and other reporters that were at the press conference. &… Read more

The Chinese government can't stand online rumors, and in a commentary today from state-run media organization Xinhua it made that abundantly clear.

According to Xinhua, a mouthpiece for the country's ruling party, the growth of microblogging services, as well as blogs, is helping to fuel "toxic rumors" that, the government says, could lead to the rapid disintegration of the quality of the Internet.

"The rapid advance of this flood has also brought 'mud and sand'--the spread of rumors--and to nurture a healthy Internet, we must thoroughly eradicate the soil in which rumors grow," … Read more

Hackers have broken into a second Web site affiliated with the San Francisco Bay Area subway system, which has come under fire in the last week for turning off cell phone service before a planned protest.

A database belonging to the BART Police Officers Association was posted online today, complete with full names, e-mail addresses, home addresses, and passwords. BART stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the embarrassing information leak--a Twitter account affiliated with Anonymous said that no one has "claimed responsibility for the hack," and speculated that it … Read more