#1 Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media
#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
#3 Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger
#4 Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US
#5 High-Tech Genocide in Congo
#6 Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy
#7 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq
#8 Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act
#9 The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall
#10 Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians
#11 Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed
#12 Pentagon Plans to Build New Landmines
#13 New Evidence Establishes Dangers of Roundup
#14 Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US
#15 Chemical Industry is EPA's Primary Research Partner
#16 Ecuador and Mexico Defy US on International Criminal Court
#17 Iraq Invasion Promotes OPEC Agenda
#18 Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story
#19 Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever
#20 Bottled Water: A Global Environmental Problem
#21 Gold Mining Threatens Ancient Andean Glaciers
#22 $Billions in Homeland Security Spending Undisclosed
#23 US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe
#24 Cheney's Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year
#25 US Military in Paraguay Threatens Region

An astonishing number of stories related to HD-DVD encryption keys have gone missing in action from digg.com, in many cases along with the account of the diggers who submitted them. Diggers are in open revolt against the moderators and are retaliating in clever and inventive ways. At one point, the entire front page comprised only stories that in one way or another were related to the hex number. Digg users quickly pointed to the HD DVD sponsorship of Diggnation, the Digg podcast show.

Search Google for a broader picture; at this writing, about 283,000 pages contain the number with hyphens, and just under 10,000 without hyphens. There's a song. Several domain names including variations of the number have been reserved.

Anti-Shivaji forums or anti-Ambedkar postings or "hate India" campaigns on Google's social networking site, Orkut, have been confounding our authorities for quite sometime now. Other than blocking the objectionable forums, the Mumbai Police could do little—except wait for the next one to pop up on the web, say, a "fan club" of wanted underworld dons like Dawood Ibrahim or Chhota Shakeel.

Following a meeting between representatives of the site and the Enforcement Directorate last month, the Mumbai Police and Orkut have entered into an agreement to seal such cooperation in matters of objectionable material on the web.

"Early February, I met three representatives from Orkut.com, including a top official from the US. The other two were from Bangalore. We reached a working agreement whereby Orkut has agreed to provide us details of the ip address from which an objectionable message or blog has been posted on the site and the Internet service provider involved," said DCP Enforcement, Sanjay Mohite.

Computer security guru Fyodor (pictured) reports waking up yesterday to find his website SecLists.org essentially removed from the web by his domain registrar, GoDaddy. After a bunch of phone calls to GoDaddy, he eventually got them to explain why: Because MySpace asked them too.

MySpace was apparently unhappy with a post that crossed Full Disclosure earlier this month, in which the author attached the spoils of a phishing attack against MySpace users, consisting of 56,000 user names and passwords.

These lists have surfaced in the security community before, allowing the white hats to see the data that the black hats have swindled out of unsuspecting users. Bruce Schneier did a fascinating analysis of an earlier MySpace password list in his Wired News column last month.

The following is a statement by Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of GrassrootsFreedom.com, regarding legislation currently being considered by Congress to regulate grassroots communications:

In what sounds like a comedy sketch from Jon Stewart's Daily Show, but isn't, the U. S. Senate would impose criminal penalties, even jail time, on grassroots causes and citizens who criticize Congress.

Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.

Unless Amendment 20 succeeds, the Senate will have criminalized the exercise of First Amendment rights. We'd be living under totalitarianism, not democracy.

Swedish website The Pirate Bay (TPB) has decided to block the Swedish ISP Perspektiv Broadband's users from accessing the TPB's website. The move comes in response to ISP Perspektiv's decision to block its users from accessing the Russian website, allofmp3.com.

One interesting thing to note is that the allofmp3 is legal under Swedish law. There is no legal reason for Perspektiv to block traffic to allofmp3, rather the broadband provider elected to do so, according the The Pirate Bay, after meeting with Swedish and Danish anti-piracy organizations.

The Pirate Bay claims that Perspektiv Bredband "clearly states in their press release that it is a moral and not legal standpoint."

Now not only can Perspektiv Broadband users not access allofmp3, but now they can't access TPB either. The end result could be: enough Perspektiv users complain and company gets rid of its blocking software.

While I agree that Perspektiv's site ban is ultimately a far more chilling threat to concepts like net neutrality, I also hope that we aren't headed toward a future where individual sites begin blocking users as an indirect way of sending a message to abusive companies.

The Internet enemies list numbers 13: Belarus, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

These are the countries singled out by the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders as the worst culprits for systematic online censorship, and they were targeted in the group's 24-hour online protest ending at 5 a.m. Wednesday.

The 13 countries "censor and block online content that criticizes them," the organization said in defining its protest. "Multinationals such as Yahoo! cooperate with the Chinese government in filtering the Internet and tracking down cyber-dissidents."

"It's one thing to turn a blind eye to censorship - it's another thing to collaborate," Morillon said.

While many countries block off some Web sites, China has long drawn heightened scrutiny because of the breadth and sophistication of its Internet censorship.

Which is why it came as a surprise on Tuesday when a Chinese government official claimed at a United Nations summit here that no Net censorship existed at all.

The only problem: Few cases of Net censorship are as carefully and publicly documented as the Great Firewall of China. A study by researchers at Harvard Law School found 19,032 Web sites that were inaccessible inside China.

A report from a consortium of British, American and Canadian universities concluded: "China's Internet-filtering regime is the most sophisticated effort of its kind in the world. Compared to similar efforts in other states, China's filtering regime is pervasive, sophisticated and effective."

One of the problems with WiMP11 is licensing and backing it up. If you buy media with DRM infections, you can't move the files from PC to PC, or at least you can't and have them play on the new box. If you want the grand privilege of moving that content, you need to get the approval of the content mafia, sign your life away, and use the tools they give you.

Yes, WiMP11 will no longer allow you the privilege of backing up your licenses, they are tied to a single device, and if you lose it, you are really SOL.

If you rip your own CDs, WiMP11 will take your rights away too. If the 'Copy protect music' option is turned on, well, I can't top their 1984 wording. "If the file is a song you ripped from a CD with the Copy protect music option turned on, you might be able to restore your usage rights by playing the file. You will be prompted to connect to a Microsoft Web page that explains how to restore your rights a limited number of times." This says to me it will keep track of your ripping externally, and remove your rights whether or not you ask it to. Can you think of a reason you would need to connect to MS for permission to play the songs you ripped from you own CDs?

Then when you go down on the page a bit, it goes on to show that it guts Tivo capabilities. After three days, it kills your recordings for you, how thoughtful of them. Going away for a week? Tough, your rights are inconvenient to their profits, so they have to go. "Recorded TV shows that are protected with media usage rights, such as some TV content recorded on premium channels, will not play back after 3 days when Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 for Windows XP is installed on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. No known workaround to resolve this issue exists at this time."

According to Xinhuanet.com, Xinhua News Agency on Sunday promulgated a set of measures to regulate the release of news and information in China by foreign news agencies. From the article: 'Where a foreign news agency violates the Measures in one of the following manners, Xinhua News Agency shall give it a warning, demand rectification within a prescribed time limit, suspend its release of specified content, suspend or cancel its qualifications of a foreign news agency for releasing news and information in China, on the merits of each case.'