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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Roy Bacon seems to have a talent for finding the silver linings in dark clouds.
The panic ban on books and electronic gadgetry aboard transatlantic airliners throws into relief our terror at being deprived of the means to insulate ourselves from other people.
The shock of losing our personal entertainment bubbles should give us pause for thought, and make us wonder if there is a better way of enduring the enforced collectivism of a long-haul flight.
Five hundred people is more individuals than most of us can hope to know intimately in a lifetime. It is the population of a small village. If a packed Jumbo is a community, then aisles are village streets. All right, they are a bit narrow for a full-fledged passeggiata, but there is no reason we should not loiter, chew the fat, shoot the breeze – indulge in those unhurried activities that are so out of kilter with the rush of modern life. With a little lateral thinking the jet airliner, the destroyer of worlds, could be the means of regenerating some homely values.
If you do not like the idea of talking to your neighbour, and in the absence of printed matter, why not get a tattoo to entertain him or her? Depending on your physique you might be limited to a short story or a few haikus, but less – in terms of skin and stanzas – has always been more. Airport novels are not thousand-pagers out of literary necessity.
Or have a random word inscribed on your skin: from an authorised British Airways or United Airlines list, of course. Stewards could ask us our syntactical preference as we get on board, and arrange seating in a narrative way. Even with a 500-word vocabulary there would be the chance of dramatic developments as a YES fell into company with a PLEASE, or failed to see eye to eye with the MAYBE two rows back.
We should start thinking about this stuff. The War on Terror is here to stay, and it is only a matter of time before they take things to their logical conclusion and ban us from carrying anything at all onto aircraft beyond ourselves. And would that really be so bad?
It is often observed that a series of power cuts in a developed nation precedes a spike in the birth rate nine months later. A planeload of naked adults flying through the night: surely they could all find something to do!
Roy Bacon has spotted a shocking and indecent source of ‘child pornography’ that our political masters seem to have left us completely unprotected from
The criminal law has apparently caught up with thoughtcrimes associated with digital manipulation of imagery; but if the legislators want real headlines, and more celebrated scalps, perhaps they should look at more traditional means of picture-making.
Today I visited a central London venue in which were publicly displayed dozens – perhaps hundreds – of indecent images of children, ranging in age from a few days old to puberty. One child in particular seemed to have a voyeuristic cult formed around him, frequently appearing with his breast-flaunting unmarried mother in the company of older men and (in the most barbarous scenes) farmyard animals.
Most of the perpetrators of these images were, at least to judge from their surnames, foreign (Angelo, Velazquez, Rubens, etc.), and the vast majority are long dead and presumably burning in hell for their perversions. However, the guardian and curator of this squalid collection is alive and well and living under British jurisdiction. He is, of course, Charles Saumarez Smith, the Director of the National Gallery.
Who is going to inform the authorities?
Try painting this today and see how long you stay out of jail
David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute makes some good points about the FCC’s proposed fines against CBS. If a Danish newspaper can establish that freedom of expression does indeed mean the right to do things that will offend some people, should that notion not also apply in the ‘Land of the Free’?
The $3.6 million in ‘indecency’ fines proposed by the FCC against CBS are an ominous attack on the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.
Just as the government does not fine newspapers that publish cartoons that Muslims deem indecent, it should not fine broadcasters that air shows that viewers deem indecent. Viewers are free to change the channel or turn off their TV set if they do not like what they see. They can not be forced to patronize a station they find indecent.
Moreover, it is the parents – not the government – who should be responsible for determining what their children are allowed to watch on TV.
‘Stoatman’ from ‘Zuid Holland’ writes in with a remarkable bit of hypocrisy from the Human Rights Industry
Amnesty International, as part of its ongoing struggle for universal human rights, is looking to employ a Discrimination and Identity consultant for its Dutch branch.
The Discrimination and Identity team consists of three paid and two volunteer positions and is concerned with influencing government policy and societal views regarding discrimination on grounds of skin colour, ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. … In this position you will develop policy and strategy in the field of Discrimination. This includes research into discrimination, and the development and organisation of lobbying regarding the fight against discrimination in the Netherlands. You will also be responsible for the development and implementation of actions and campaigns concerning discrimination worldwide and in the Netherlands
Before you dust off your CV which bulges with non-jobs in local government and crack open the Dutch taped course, there is just one problem before you can claim your £21-26k salary:
Considering the composition of the team, we are seeking someone from an ethnic minority group
Has it reached the stage now that such discrimination has become so mainstream that nobody even bats an eyelid to such brazen hypocrisy?
(hat tip – The Amazing Retecool)
‘Humbug’ wrote an e-mail to Samizdata regarding the Free Expression versus Islamic intolerance issue that takes a more introspective view
I do not know why I am wasting my time waiting for Hollywood or anyone in the music industry to come out and stand up for free speech. Here we have a global conflict that will forever impact our future and these ‘sophisticated elites’ are hiding behind the gates in their upscale neighborhoods. The ‘shocking’ photo of the dull Kanye West or the equally ‘provocative’ photo of Madonna as The Madonna are simply boring.
Of course neither of them would ever dare pose as Mohammed or appear wearing a burqa. Heck no, that would not be the run of the mill, piss off the parents material, that might actually get them a fatwa.
Eminem, likewise would never dare insult the ‘one who must not be seen’. No, he will stick with making fun of groups where the penalty is merely a slap on the wrist, like homosexuals and women. Michael Moore we can all forget about it, just as we can forget about the Dixie Chicks. The problem here is that standing up for free speech in this case, does not involve Bush bashing and it actually takes courage to fight this battle. With icons like these, who needs an invading army?
But then, I am just repeating what many have already said.
Update: however Lil’ Kim shows the correct way to wear a burqa
Robin Koerner of Watching America thinks that the whole ‘Satanic Cartoon’ issue needs to be resolved with the straightforward notion that people must agree to disagree
Gulliver’s Travels is a satirical story about two factions that face over how to eat boiled eggs. The first maintains that boiled eggs should be cracked at the smaller end. Their opponents maintain that they should be cracked at the larger end: and they are all set to go to war over it.
With the ‘offensive’ Danish cartoons, we have the modern equivalent: the large-enders (Western apologists) are apologizing to the small-enders (offended Muslims) for making a joke out of small-ending!
This entire furor is premised on the assumption that we can not dignify people by giving them responsibility for the way they choose to react to the things in their world – and especially things that they do not like. Just as I have the responsibility not to choose to get angry at all every Muslim when a few damaged individuals commit such evil acts as beheading of innocents.
No one can insult me or offend me unless I choose to be insulted or offended. In denying that, I deny my own power over myself. I understand that people may not have arrived at that understanding, but since I have it, I cannot in good conscience withdraw my own free expression when no hurt was intended.
Did all these politicians and pundits not learn this very basic lesson when they were five and got upset at a hurtful remark in the playground, and their teachers told them, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”…?
While I am the first to expound openness to those who see things differently from me I also expound my own need to be who I am. We have a right to do our truth as individuals, and as a culture, just as do all Muslims and the culture of Islam. While I will always respect the right of someone to disagree with me, and respect the equal humanity even of those who disagree with me violently, I never have to deny my own truth.
Voltaire’s famous line, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” will only make for a better world if we add to it, “You disapprove of what I say, but I will defend to the death my right to say it.”…
In the instance of the ‘offensive’ cartoon, no one needs to defend anything to the death. We need only politely apologize for causing unintended upset; politely explain that we do not require that the cartoon be read by anyone who is in any way upset by it, and that we respectfully disagree that our culture is worse for protecting freedom of expression where it is not imposed and does no physical harm.
Then let it drop and let the fire burn itself out. It is called “agreeing to disagree” and is the very manifestation of treating everyone with equal respect.
Andrew Zalotocky makes a useful point that we need to stop pretending that we have free speech in Britain, we do not. Time for a new description.
Regular Samizdata readers will probably be aware of the cases of Lynette Burrows and Iqbal Sacranie, who have both recently fallen foul of ‘hate speech’ legislation. The latter case prompted Guy Herbert to comment that “whatever it is, it is not freedom of expression”. I propose that we should call it ‘permitted speech’, in contrast to ‘free speech’.
For speech to be truly free it must include the right to say things that others would find grossly offensive. If a government uses the threat of prosecution to suppress speech that it considers offensive it is asserting that the people may only express the views that their rulers deem appropriate. No matter how lightly the government uses this power it is still establishing the principle that citizens do not have a right to speak freely, only a license to engage in the officially permitted forms of speech. America has ‘free speech’ and Britain has ‘permitted speech’.
Of course, the majority of people are not in the habit of expressing controversial views in the mass media and are therefore unlikely to feel immediately threatened by such restrictions. Even cases like that of the student who was arrested for calling a horse “gay” are likely to be seen as a joke rather than a demonstration of how criminalising the expression of certain opinions affects everybody. However, that just makes it even more important to explain why the right to freedom of speech must be defended, and to make clear that permitted speech is not the same thing at all.
Patrick Wilks writes in with an eyewitness account and interesting picture of the oil explosion
We are all fine as the fire is about four miles away. The initial explosion woke us up just after six, my wife thought it was an earthquake but I must admit it did not trouble me and I went back to sleep. Out the front of the house the smoke was very thick and it was like night almost but out the back it was bright sun shine quite a contrast.
A lot of the roads round Hemel Hempstead have been closed which is causing the most problem. One area that was hit bad was Hunters Oak, were we used to have a house in 1990. That location is only about half a mile from the depot.
I drove past this morning and the fires were still very big but not as much as yesterday. In the picture its hard to see but the flames were a good few hundred feet into the air. This was taken on the edge of the village. The kids are pleased as they have just heard that the schools are closed tomorrow.
(click for larger image)
Paul Coulam sees that a contempt for private property leads people to do some very strange and self-defeating things. Free association? Not any more.
Amazing as it may seem the government has today banned ‘gay clubs’ as a result of campaigning from the gay lobby.
According to the Times:
Hoteliers, bed-and-breakfast owners and pub landlords will no longer be able to bar gay people from their premises under new laws to be announced today […] The Government will accept today an amendment to its Equality Bill that will outlaw discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation in providing goods and services or organising public functions. The amendment […] will also mark the end of gay or lesbian-only clubs because bars and nightclubs will no longer be able to turn away straight people.
How stupid can these people be? Many gay businesses survive as such only because they can so explicitly discriminate, especially in their advertising. This ridiculous new law will be a very serious threat to the continuation of a ‘gay scene’ in many towns across the country. It is tricky to foresee all of the unintended consequences of this one. Gay clubs operate varying degrees of explicit discrimination depending on the locale or type of club. The strictest hard core gay cruise clubs generally operate a ‘men only’ door policy, which does the trick, but this itself may be or may become illegal – who knows what horrors of forced integration are still to come?
However many of the more general gay dance clubs operate what they advertise as a ‘gay majority policy’ which is usually employed to refuse entry to large parties of girls only. Gay clubs are often the best clubs in a particular town and tend to attract groups of girls who want a night away from predatory straight men. Of course the large numbers of unwary girls in these clubs itself attracts the straight men and before long the club has lost all appeal for gays. In the case of hotels there are lots of hotels in various, often remote, parts of the country that offer gay only accommodation and advertise as such. Will such advertising be illegal? In the short term after this absurd bill is passed clubs, bars and hotels will continue to operate discrimination informally but all it will take is some petulant activist or a council with a bee in its bonnet or some obsessive bureaucrat to stick their oar in to ruin some particular venue or business.
James Waterton takes a look at the Middle East and comes up with some conclusions that you may or may not agree with, but all of which are certainly worth examining
It is arguable that securing energy supplies is the most important single challenge within the international security agenda. Entire foreign policies are based around this aim, and nations are constantly jostling to cut deals – in all sorts of ways and often at the expense of others – with energy suppliers, private and governmental. It is hardly surprising, for energy drives our modern economies and is an indivisible component of economic and social growth. The recent war in Iraq and the continuing upheaval in that country is a prime example of an attempt to secure energy supplies. Certainly, stating that Iraq was a “war for oil” is a gross simplification. However, the Middle East is strategic primarily for its energy reserves, and thus it is certainly in the world’s interest to promote a stable Middle East. Such an aim has been a central plank of the foreign policy of every major world power for decades. Of late, however, the developed world has become increasingly engaged in the Middle East – with the overarching aim of securing energy supplies. This has inflamed cultural and often geopolitical tensions, arguably culminating in the current “War on Terror” scenario. I will examine some of the forces at play in the Middle East relevant to global energy supply, and attempt to provide a solution to the energy supply challenges faced today. The West must play the leading role in this envisaged solution, not just because it is most able to; it has the most to gain by determining the solution to the world’s energy supply problems. It can secure its comfortable, energy-reliant way of life into the distant future, as well as making for more peaceful global relations.
Western involvement in the Middle East stretches back long before the existence of the concept of “The West” itself. Obviously, this history impacts on events today, however plenty has been written about that and I don’t want to dwell on it here. In the place of historical analysis, I will state the obvious and highlight the Middle East’s current strategic importance. At the end of 2003, it contained well over half of the world’s known reserves of crude oil. Crude oil is humankind’s most important, widely used and versatile energy source, and it is the largest selling commodity in the world by value of sales. Saudi Arabia, the nation with the largest reserves of crude oil in the world, sits on approximately a quarter of known reserves. Following Saudi Arabia (in descending order of size of reserves) is Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. These four nations contain approximately 40% of the world’s known reserves of crude oil between them. → Continue reading: Reducing the opportunity cost of energy
This is the un-edited version of an article sent in by Diana Quaver, which we published earlier in a reduced form. Diana has been closely following this story, which should be of great interest to the on-line community:
I have recently followed the trial of Daniel Cuthbert. This was the gentleman who was accused of “hacking” into the website of the Disasters and Emergency Committee. He was recently found “regretfully” found guilty under section 1 (a) of the Computer Misuse Act 1990. He never even lived in Whitechapel. This was the BBC story a few months ago:
Charge over tsunami ‘hacking’ bid
A man has been charged over an alleged attempt to hack into a website set up to raise funds after the Asian tsunami.
Daniel Cuthbert, 28, of Whitechapel, east London, has been charged with one offence under the Computer Misuse Act.
Scotland Yard said the charge followed an alleged unauthorised access of the Disasters and Emergency Committee site on New Year’s Eve.
Mr Cuthbert is due to appear at Horseferry Magistrates’ Court next Thursday.
The disaster fund has raised an estimated £250m to help victims of the tsunami.
Tens of thousands of people used its web pages to offer money to those caught in the Boxing Day tragedy.
Today, Daniel Cuthbert was found guilty.
Daniel Cuthbert saw the devastating images of the Tsunami disaster and decided to donate £30 via the website that was hastily set up to be able to process payments. He is a computer security consultant, regarded in his field as an expert and respected by colleagues and employers alike. He entered his full personal details (home address, number, name and full card details). He did not receive confirmation of payment or a reference and became concerned as he has had issues with fraud on his card on a previous occasion. He then did a couple of very basic penetration tests. If they resulted in the site being insecure as he suspected, he would have contacted the authorities, as he had nothing to gain from doing this for fun and keeping the fact to himself that he suspected the site to be a phishing site and all this money pledged was going to some South American somewhere in South America.
The first test he used was the (dot dot slash, 3 times) ../../../ sequence. The ../ command is called a Directory Traversal which allows you to move up the hierarchy of a file. The triple sequence amounts to a DTA (Directory Traversal Attack), allows you to move three times. It is not a complete attack as that would require a further command, it was merely a light “knock on the door”. The other test, which constituted an apostrophe( ‘ ) was also used. He was then satisfied that the site was safe as his received no error messages in response to his query, then went about his work duties. There were no warnings or dialogue boxes showing that he had accessed an unauthorised area.
20 days later he was arrested at his place of work and had his house searched. In the first part of his interview, he did not readily acknowledge his actions, but in the second half of the interview, he did. He was a little distraught and confused upon arrest, as anyone would be in that situation and did not ask for a solicitor, as he maintained he did nothing wrong. His tests were done in a 2 minute timeframe, then forgotten about.
He was prosecuted under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, which was signed in 1989 when perms were just going out of fashion and mobile phones were like bricks and cost £1000 and we were still using green type on a black background. The word “ Computer” was not even defined as they realised that this area was moving at light speed so they wanted to keep it open. Sadly, it has become open to willy-nilly interpretation and the magistrate decided there was intention to access data as stated in section 1(a), although I may be biased, it is an incorrect interpretation.
Cuthbert was prosecuted under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, and convicted under Section 1 (a) of this Act. The relevant section of the Act is:
Section (1) of the Act states:
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if –
a. he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer;
b. the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and
c. he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case.
As an expert, if he had true intent (as the judge deemed he did, which is an incorrect analysis) he would have been more than capable of “hacking” and gunning that door down with a digital version of a point-blank range AK47, but he did not. He maybe should not have done the tests that are beyond the knowledge of a regular user and a caution would have sufficed, there was no need for a trial and certainly not 10 months of waiting time. The policeman was smug as he got his browny points and the CPS prosecutor was what one can expect of a CPS prosecutor, patronising, pedantic and uninteresting but sadly successful.
The ../ sequence triggered of the alarm which was set up as “high” for this sort of “attack” at the donate.bt.com website that was set up by the DEC website. This alerted someone that there was something potentially suspicious, this was then passed up to someone who reported it to the police. They found their suspect through the IP address and were able to trace it to his laptop. Well, the Computer Crime Unit (known in the industry as “Muppets”) were very happy they got their man.
Mr Cuthbert was convicted under S. 1 (a) of the Computer Misuse Act 1990. It will be almost impossible for him to work in IT, the security industry being totally based on trust and reputation, as they are all freelancers and rely on contacts. That simply is not right. Justice is not always synonymous with legality.
When someone tells you, “whatever you do, do not press the red button” and you are almost compelled, in just that way, I am feverishly tempted to type in the ../../../ sequence in the Ministry of Defence website, and see what happens. Maybe not.
Allan M.R. MacRae of Calgary, Canada points out something rather interesting that seems to have gone largely unreported in the mainstream media.
Here are verbatim quotes by Tony Blair from the September 15, 2005 Plenary Session of the Clinton Global Initiative Conference.
Tony Blair seems to have let the cat out of the bag on his new energy policy at the Clinton Global Initiative Conference last week. Blair said:
“I would say probably I’m changing my thinking about this [Kyoto treaty] in the past two or three years…
…The truth is no country is going to cut its growth or consumption substantially in the light of a long-term environmental problem…
…There is no way we are going to tackle this problem unless we develop the science and technology…
…Some people have signed Kyoto, some people haven’t signed Kyoto, right. That is a disagreement. It’s there. It’s not going to be resolved…
…I don’t think people are going, at least in the short term, going to start negotiating another major treaty like Kyoto.”
This must be a major disappointment to Kyoto enthusiasts, who say ten more Kyotos are needed for effective reduction of atmospheric CO2.
On July 12, 2005, on the subject of the Gleneagles Summit, I wrote the following to a number of colleagues:
“…we may now be at a point where many Euro politicians are realizing the science of Kyoto is bogus, but they are reluctant to admit they have been duped about global warming and have misled their public with scary stories for which there was no evidence – their new approach suggests a politically-correct “quiet exit” from Kyoto. We’ll see…”
Allan M.R. MacRae
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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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