We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Simson Garfinkel of MIT Enterprise Technology explains:
RFID technology is already broadly deployed within the United States. Between the “proximity cards” that are used to unlock many office doors and the automobile “immobilizer chips” that are built into many modern car keys, roughly 40 million Americans carry some form of RFID device in their pocket every day. I have two: last year MIT started putting RFID proximity chips into the school’s identity cards, and there is a Phillips immobilizer chip inside the black case of my Honda Pilot car keys.
He comes to an interesting conclusion:
The problem of voluntary, industry-approved privacy standards is that they’re voluntary—companies don’t need to comply with them. And the very real danger facing the RFID industry is that a suspicious public will push for regulation of this technology. Although the industry has successfully killed legislation proposed earlier this year in California and Massachusetts, high-handed actions on the part of RFID-advocates will likely empower consumer activists and their legislative allies to pass some truly stifling legislation.
Indeed.
Some members of the journalist profession need to be explained things slowly and clearly. Scott Burgess undertakes that ungrateful task and tries to get the message through to Polly Toynbee.
… Welcome to the new media world, Polly.
Up until now, an information elite has been able to misrepresent and manufacture fact with virtual impunity – sometimes accidentally, sometimes as a deliberate means of pushing a chosen agenda.
For example, if a newspaper polemicist wanted to contend that “Scandinavian countries are best of all” at overcoming obesity, it was unlikely that many would notice and connect the fact that: “Norway has the highest percentage of overweight men in Europe, according to a new report by the World Health Organization (WHO).”
Those who did notice such “anomalies” had no easy means of communicating them to others interested in issues of journalistic integrity.
As you see, that’s changing now. What you (and many others) are in the process of learning is that, from now on, reportorial sloppiness and dishonesty will be noted, exposed, and punished – quickly and very, very publicly.
Journalists who are accurate and honest have little to fear – the facts will out. Their less capable (and less truthful) colleagues risk the humiliation of public ridicule.
Best of all, in this new media environment the once-wise maxim “never get in an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel” no longer applies – we all have barrels now. Ardent proponents of equality would no doubt applaud this development, were they not the ones whose superior status was now under threat.
Very Truly Yours,
Scott Burgess
The Daily Ablution
London
For more quality time with bloggers and Polly, follow the path that lead to the above document.
For years, more precisely since 8 July 1963, Cuban cigars have been a banned pleasure for U.S. citizens but at least when abroad they could legally indulge. Earlier this month the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has announced that Americans are barred from not only purchasing Cuban goods in foreign countries, but also from consuming them in those countries.
I quote from the OFAC’s Cuban cigar update (pdf):
The question is often asked whether United States citizens or permanent resident aliens of the United States may legally purchase Cuban origin goods, including tobacco and alcohol products, in a third country for personal use outside the United States. The answer is no. The Regulations prohibit persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States from purchasing, transporting, importing, or otherwise dealing in or engaging in any transactions with respect to any merchandise outside the United States if such merchandise (1) is of Cuban origin; or (2) is or has been located in or transported from or through Cuba; or (3) is made or derived in whole or in part of any article which is the growth, produce or manufacture of Cuba. Thus, in the case of cigars, the prohibition extends to cigars manufactured in Cuba and sold in a third country and to cigars manufactured in a third country from tobacco grown in Cuba.
The penalties for violating the prohibitions include maximum criminal fines for individuals of $250,000 and imprisonment for up to 10 years. Corporations can be fined as much as a million dollars.
What this means is that the US government claims ‘ownership’ of its citizens. It extends its jurisdiction beyond the territory of the United States and imposes its restrictions wherever you are. If that is not the state’s way of saying it owns its citizens, I do not know what is.
This is not the first time we got our knickers in a twist over this modern form of slavery. Here is what Perry de Havilland says about the matter when you get him started on the US citizenship.
American citizenship particularly (more than any other advanced nation’s citizenship) is rather like being branded like livestock. To have that brand means that, unlike almost every other state on earth, the US government will always claim a pecuniary interest in the private property that you acquire, even if you live outside the USA and make your living outside the USA and keep your assets outside the USA. Unlike other countries, which by and large lose interest in you the moment you step outside their borders, the USA actually makes itself your super-owner. The USA do not just claim a territorial monopoly on the means of force, it actually claims to own part of your labour regardless of where you are.
There you have it. You cannot hide. The US government wants to see even through the haze of your cuban. The good news is that you are welcome at Samizdata HQ as I light up a lovely Trinidad fundadore. Just remember not to inhale.
via Ben Hammersley
Blogs are the c[e]rebrum of the Net.
– Doc Searls
Silicon.com reports that despite government figures showing growing opposition the government will now issue standalone compulsory biometric ID cards as part of changes to the draft ID card bill issued by Home Secretary David Blunkett.
The cards will be issued with passports but will not be incorporated into either the existing passport or driving licence as previously proposed, with a standardised online verification service used to check card details against those held on the National Identity Register (NIR). Blunkett said:
I will now bring forward legislation to bring in a compulsory, national ID card scheme.
A new executive agency incorporating the UK Passport Service and working with the Home Office’s Immigration and Nationality Directorate will now be set up to deliver and run the ID card scheme.
The Government would not agree with the use of the word ‘sensitive’ to describe most of the data to be collected and stored. Most of the data which will be held by the scheme is already public and is used routinely in everyday transactions, like opening a bank account or joining a library.
The ID card consultation summary can be found here and the Home Office’s response to the select committee report can be found here.
Washington Post reports that Rep. Jim Turner sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who wrote that terrorists who alter their fingerprints have about an even chance of slipping past U.S. border watch-list checks because the government is using a two-fingerprint system instead of one that relies on all 10 prints. He mentioned a study by researchers at Stanford University who concluded the two-finger system is no more than 53 percent effective in matching fingerprints with poor image quality against the government’s biometric terrorist watch-list. Turner said the system falls far short of keeping the country secure.
Turner accused homeland security officials of failing to be “more forthcoming” about the limitations of their approach.
I understand your desire to deploy biometric screening at our borders as quickly as possible. But more than three years after the 9/11 attacks, we have invested more than $700 million in an entry-exit system that cannot reliably do what the Department so often said it would: Use a biometric watch-list to keep known terrorists out of the country.
How about not using terrorists as an excuse for tagging the citizens?
Washington Post analyses erosion of online privacy, this time coming from Google:
And yesterday, the omniscient-seeming search engine Google bested itself by announcing a service to probe for information both online and in your own machine. One company official called it a “photographic memory for your computer.”
Richard M. Smith, an Internet security consultant says:
It’s this whole new world. It’s sort of like all these little details about our lives are being recorded. We love the conveniences. We love the services. But people kind of instinctively know there’s a dark side to this. They just hope it won’t happen to them.
The Telegraph reports that an Iraqi-born gunman with a British passport, Mohammed Kasim, talked to an Iraqi translator in Fallujah about the latest video of Mr Bigley where he was shown shackled in a cage. Mr Kasim claimed that this had been staged to “terrify” the British public. There was no way of verifying the claim, particularly in a country awash with rumour and conspiracy theories.
The claims that the British hostage was free to roam his kidnappers’ home in Iraq and was “caged” only for terrorist videos coincide with a raid by Dutch intelligence officers of the home of Paul Bigley, Kenneth Bigley’s brother last, who lives in Amsterdam. He is accused of contact with the Tawhid and Jihad group, which yesterday claimed responsibility for Thursday’s killing of at least 35 children in Baghdad. Mr Bigley has been an outspoken critic of the Government’s handling of his brother’s case and has established his own contacts in the Middle East but denies being in direct contact with the kidnappers.
From yesterday news, Italy’s adoration of the “two Simonas” (Simona Pari and Simona Torretta), the women aid workers abducted in Iraq, began to sour yesterday, as the extent of their sympathy for the Iraqi fight against the allied occupation became clear.
After they were taken hostage on Sept 7, the two Simonas achieved iconic status in Italy and the conservative government and the opposition put aside their differences to work together for the women’s release.
But as the Turin newspaper La Stampa said yesterday, national unity has been short lived since their arrival home, wearing kaftans and thanking their captors in Arabic for their release before the cameras of the Al-Jazeera stellite television network.
There have been reports of a $1 million ransom… No matter, the girls are well versed in international law:
If you ask me about terrorism, I’ll tell you that there is terrorism and there is resistance. The resistance struggle of people against an occupying force is guaranteed by international law.
They have obviously become experts on the local situation – upon their return they gave their backing to insurgents opposing the allied forces. Alas, they did not seem to know about other hostages:
We didn’t know there were any other hostages. No one told us about the British prisoner, nor about the Americans who were beheaded.
CNet.com has a round up of articles about RFID:
Privacy questions arise as RFID hits stores
Companies brace for privacy debate, as potentially intrusive applications arrive faster than expected.
European supermarket chain extends RFID push
Tesco will use the technology in more stores, focusing this time on tracking cases and pallets, rather than individual items.
Tracking technology gets a reality check
At Baltimore pow-wow, hype over new RFID technology is tempered by concerns about cost, privacy and quality.
With RFID, corporate might makes right
Retail powerhouses such as Wal-Mart gather in Baltimore to push development of controversial tagging technology.
IBM readies large RFID push
Big Blue plans to invest $250 million in a new business unit to support products and services related to sensor networks.
Wal-Mart Stores, Procter & Gamble and other big companies pushing the electronic tracking tags said they’d use them only in warehouses to more easily locate and account for stock arriving in cases and palettes. By the time the merchandise hit store shelves, they’d have removed the tags. The placement of tags on items consumers actually take home was projected to be at least 10 years away, last year’s argument went. Some said it may never happen if costs remained prohibitive.
Though relatively rare today, RFID tags are marching toward stores and shopping baskets across the country–raising questions about the implications for consumers. Also experimenting with RFID are Albertsons, Best Buy, Target, as well as European chains Metro and Tesco. Elizabeth Board, executive director of the public policy steering committee for EPCglobal said during a panel discussion:
There is a concern that EPC (tags) can be tracked everywhere and that retailers want to track you at all times of the day. It’s not realistic, but it has caused a lot of confusion.
She expects that fears about privacy invasion will continue to be a public relations problem for the technology. RFID supporters must do more to dispel the myths and misconceptions surrounding it.
Retailers and consumer-goods companies are hesitant to agree to removing tags from items at the time of purchase for several reasons. One reason is that RFID tags could help with returns by exposing people trying to get a refund for a product they never really bought, or one they purchased from another store.
One of the valid concerns about RFID is what companies plan to do with all the detailed data they’ll be able to collect about consumers, said Daniel Engles, director of research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Auto-ID Lab, an RFID research group.
NO2ID is launching its activities publicly:
Saturday, 18 September
11:00an – 2:00pm
The Corner Store
Covent Garden
33 Wellington Street, London, WC2E 7BN, Map
There will be a couple of speakers before lunch, including a Labour ‘rebel’, Neil Gerrard MP followed by campaigning around central London, i.e. handing out leaflets, setting up stalls on the street in a number of locations until mid-afternoon.
Please join them to Stop ID Cards and the Database State!
The NO2ID Coalition, who are trying to make sure Blunkett fails in his attempts to introduce mandatory ID cards, argue that:
NO2ID is launching its activities publicly:
Saturday, 18 September
11:00am – 2:00pm
The Corner Store
Covent Garden
33 Wellington Street,
London, WC2E 7BN, Map
There will be a couple of speakers before lunch, including a Labour ‘rebel’, Neil Gerrard MP followed by campaigning around central London, i.e. handing out leaflets, setting up stalls on the street in a number of locations until mid-afternoon.
Please join them to Stop ID Cards and the Database State!
The NO2ID Coalition, who are trying to make sure Blunkett fails in his attempts to introduce mandatory ID cards, argue that:
Cross-posted from White Rose.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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